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Thanks to It and Stranger Things, it makes sense that any scifi or fantasy property that revolves around scrappy kids would get put on the fast track. And a new one has entered the fray, plucked from the same era that inspired those two hits: a remake of 1986 kid-meets-aliens adventure Flight of the Navigator.
According to The Hollywood Reporter, Joe Henderson — showrunner on Lucifer, which returns Monday to Fox — will put the Devil aside temporarily to pen a script for the reboot. The original film, a Disney release, is about a 12-year-old Florida kid who goes missing in 1978 and turns up in 1986, having not aged a day. The reason: aliens (led by Max, who’s voiced by Paul “Pee-Wee Herman” Reubens), who end up needing his help to fix their broken ship so they can return home, no thanks to the interference of NASA along the way. So far there’s no word on how Henderson might change the story, or if the new Navigator will update its setting to the present day or even the future.
After a proposed Disney version of the remake failed to launch in 2009, this new Lionsgate-made version of the film will be produced by the Henson Co., which will no doubt bring its puppet expertise in helping craft the movie’s cast of alien and robot characters.