Based on the 1994 Arnold Schwarzenegger action movie of the same name, the True Lies TV series will look to reboot the franchise almost 30 years later. While True Lies seemed to be the perfect movie to get a sequel, thanks to its box office performance and the ending setting up a follow story, that project sat in development hell for a long while before many believed that the 9/11 attack on New York’s Twin Towers saw the project canceled entirely. Now, Steve Howey is set to take on the lead role in the new reboot series for CBS, and although other attempts to bring the movie to the small screen have failed, this time around it looks like the creative team behind the show have found the right stuff to make the story work.

James Cameron’s True Lies was a less than serious action movie, which saw Arnold Schwarzenegger playing Harry Tasker, a man whose wife is unaware that he works as a spy for the American government and believes he is a computer salesman. His wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, ends up being tricked into believing she is part of a secret plot but inadvertently ends up becoming caught up in the dangerous world of her husband.

Now the True Lies TV show is looking to reboot the story with Howey starring alongside Ginger Gonzaga, with a supporting cast including Omar Miller, Mike O’Gorman, Erica Hernandez and Lucas Jayne. With the show having a full series order greenlit in May, Howey is excited to get started on the project and recently told Screen Rant:

"I’m very excited, I feel like Day Shift has been a great training for the stunts, right? To know what my body has to do and get into it, a little less muscle and more flexibility. I have to go out to Atlanta, it's shot in Atlanta, I'm gonna be out there for a few months, four months, five months, whatever it is and I'm just excited. We're not going to do the Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis movie, it's a classic, that stands alone. We're doing something else and we're doing our own thing, but that's based in that system. We got a great cast, Ginger Gonzaga plays the Jamie Lee Curtis character, Owen Miller plays the Tom Arnold character. And then our showrunner did — remember that show on USA? [Burn Notice] A really underrated show.”

True Lies Will Not Be A Straight Adaptation of The Movie

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Lightstorm Entertainment

There are obviously many fans of the original True Lies movie, and that means that there are plenty of people who aren’t exactly on board with a reboot, even if it is 30 years later in the form of a TV series. However, the news that the series will not be a straight film-to-TV series adaptation should be a good sign that some thought has been put into the project and not just a way of making a bit of money on the back of a well-known project name.

True Lies is set to premiere sometime later this year on CBS, meaning it won’t be too long until audiences will be able to make their judgment on whether the new take on the story is worth the investment or not.