The core appeal of Bullitt is as straightforward as movies get: Steve McQueen plays a detective that gets in a car chase. There is more to it than that, of course, but the reality is that the vast majority of what made the film iconic comes down entirely to those three variables. Beloved movie star Steve McQueen is there, he plays a detective named Frank Bullitt, and that detective goes on an eleven-minute car chase. This premise may not seem like much, but the original film is so mystifying that it still sticks with car buyers 54 years later, leading Ford to create Bullitt editions of its current Mustang as recently as last year.
Steven Spielberg is apparently a fan, too. The legendary director behind megahits ranging from Jurassic Park to Schindler’s List has targeted an original story centered around Frank Bullitt for an upcoming project, one reportedly already in the planning stages. According to a report by Deadline, Spielberg has reached an agreement with McQueen’s family for rights to the character and has already tapped writer Josh Singer to put together a script.
As the original is a self-contained story that solves everything a viewer really needs, Bullitt is not exactly an intellectual property that has been waiting for either a reboot or a continuation. Steve Spielberg disagrees, though, and Steve Spielberg has generally been right about what movies need more often than anyone else in the industry.
Here at Road & Track, our biggest question is how Spielberg will handle the legacy of the film’s iconic car chase. A 2003 remake of 1969’s The Italian Job paid tribute to that film’s chase as directly as possible, with modern Minis filling in for the original cars. Spielberg could go the same way and find an excuse to put his hero in a current Mustang and his antagonist in a current Charger, but, if he truly wants to make an original story with the character, he could open Bullitt’s automotive world up in more unique ways. He could even forego a chase entirely; after all, while Bullitt is remembered for the chase, most of the movie is just about a detective chasing down a witness.
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