WWE superstar Charlotte Flair will star in a made-for-TV film adaptation of Walking Tall.
The Walking Tall movie is being developed for USA Network by David Eick, an executive producer for the early 2000s reboot of Battlestar Galactica, as reported by Deadline. Studio Village Roadshow will produce the film along with Mosaic, Three Rivers and WWE Studios. A script has been sold with the hopes for either movie sequels or a television series spinoff.
Set in Tucson, Arizona, Flair plays a police officer waging a one-person war on crime in her hometown. At the time of this writing, her character in the film is unnamed.
Flair has held thirteen WWE Women's Championship titles and has been adding acting to her legacy as well. Her prior acting credits include Psych: The Movie and starring in an episode of the Peacock revival of the 1980s sitcom Punky Brewster.
Starring Joe Don Baker, the original Walking Tall from 1973 is based on the life of the late Buford Pusser, a former wrestler who became a county sheriff in Tennessee and used bare-knuckle tactics and a hand-made club to break up gambling dens and moonshine operations. Bo Swenson starred as Pusser in two sequels, which covered Pusser's life through the making of the first film and his death in a vehicle crash. Svenson also starred in a short-lived TV spinoff on NBC and Brian Dennehy played Pusser in a TV movie for CBS.
Dwayne Johnson starred in a 2004 reboot that brought the story to modern times and renamed and recast the character as an Army Special Forces veteran returning to his hometown in Washington state. Two direct-to-video movies starring Kevin Sorbo followed.
Source: Deadline