MGM
In 1989, the world was introduced to the televised spectacle that was American Gladiators, the sensation that revolved around average people attempting to hold their own against wildly muscular foes in various athletic showdowns.
It’s been close to 30 years since the original series came to an end, but it looks like it’s coming back from the dead courtesy of Amazon.
In a perfect world, sporting events like the Olympics and PGA Tour tournaments would all feature a random person who got plucked off of the streets to compete to give us an idea of just how poorly the Average Joe would fare compared to some of the best athletes on the planet.
I’d argue the closest we’ve come to that hypothetical becoming a reality is American Gladiators, which featured regular people from various walks of life going head-to-head with the eponymous Adonises with names like Nitro, Laser, and Atlas in self-explanatory events like The Joust as well as Assault, The Gauntlet, and Hang Tough.
More than 200 episodes of American Gladiators ran in syndication between 1989 and 1996, and a rebooted version hosted by Hulk Hogan and Laila Ali lasted for a couple of seasons after it was resurrected as a result of the writers’ strike in 2008.
There have been multiple attempts to bring American Gladiators back from the dead since then (including an effort featuring the involvement of Seth Rogan that went nowhere after being announced in 2018), and according to Deadline, a new reboot is currently in the works for Amazon Prime Video in conjunction with co-creator Johnny C. Ferraro.
Details are currently pretty scarce, although the outlet specifically mentions The Gauntlet, Hang Tough, and The Eliminator when it comes to the classic competitions that will be making their grand return.
There’s currently no concrete timeline for the release, but the producers are currently casting participants and it seems safe to assume it’ll drop in the next couple of years if everything goes to plan.