‘Bumblebee’s’ Travis Knight Set To Direct WB’s ‘Six Billion Dollar Man’

Warner Bros.’ Six Million Dollar Man is back on track after quite the long rocky journey with Bumblebee director Travis Knight taking the helm.

The Six Million Dollar Man is based on the ’70s TV series of the same title, where it revolves around former astronaut Colonel Steve Austin. After an experiment crash, Austin was rebuilt with bionic implants. Because of this, he developed superhuman strength, speed, and vision. He then used these abilities as a secret agent. In its five-season run on ABC from 1973 to 1978, Lee Majors played Austin’s character.

The feature film project began at The Weinstein Co. before Warner Bros. took charge in 2017. Director and co-writer Damian Szifron was at the helm. It was slated to be released on November 2017. But, it was pushed to 2019 then to 2020. The last update to production was Szifron’s leave citing creative differences on his script, according to Deadline.

Now, Travis Knight is set to take the lead working with The Accountant and The Judge writer Bill Dubuque, with Mark Wahlberg still attached to the role of Col. Austin. According to ScreenRant, the Six Million Dollar Man is currently a clean slate. Szifron’s script has been scrapped and Knight and Dubuque are working with no set release date from WB at the moment. Bill Gerber, Steve Levinson, and Sue Kroll will be producing.

Last year, Knight made his live-action film debut with the Transformers spinoff Bumblebee which grossed $466 million at the global box office and successfully revived the franchise. Knight’s 2016 debut film Kubo and the Two Strings was also nominated in the Oscars twice in 2017. He is also the CEO and founder of the stop-animation Laika, where titles like Coraline and new release Missing Link came from.

Knight’s new instatement was first reported by Variety.