ABC, February 1, 1998
Based on the novel by John Godey
Written by April Smith
Directed by Felix Enriquez Alcala
Executive Producers John Watson, Richard Barton Lewis, Pen Densham
Cast: James Olmos, Lorraine Bracco, Vincent D'Onofrio, Donnie Wahlberg, Richard Schiff.
Filmed by Trilogy Entertainment Television 

     The difficulty in doing a remake of The Taking of Pelham One Two Three, in which a gang of terrorists hijacks a New York City subway car, was that the 1974 original was so darn good. The novel was a best-seller, and everyone remembers the feature movie with Walter Matthau as the wry Transit Authority detective. 
     At the beginning some executives were nervous about trying to meet the standards of a classic. For example, the suggestion was made to change the location of the story to San Francisco, where a bomb would have been placed on a BART subway train stopped underneath the Golden Gate Bridge. Often it is left to the writer to defend (or even remember) the original intention of the piece. In this case April was able to argue successfully against the bomb-under-the-Golden-Gate-Bridge idea. 
    Ultimately it was agreed to send April to New York to research current subway technology since so much of the story depended on the bad guys' precision plan for uncoupling the trains. It turns out nothing has changed in the New York City subways (although a major renovation is on the way) except that today the Walter Matthau character (played by James Olmos) would not be working for the Transit Authority, but would be a specially trained NYPD hostage negotiator, a change which April incorporated into the teleplay. The film was shot in Toronto. 
     Entertainment Weekly called it, "One of the most remarkable network-TV movies in recent memory. A."

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