Van Damme may reprise his iconic role as Kurt Sloane

According to various media reports, Jean-Claude Van Damme’s Kickboxer franchise will be turned into a new television series entitled Operation: Kickboxer, with Gary Scott Thompson of The Fast and the Furious fame behind the project.

The original Kickboxer debuted in theaters in 1989 and effectively turned Van Damme into a action star for a new generation. The movie was a grand hit as it brought out the actor’s martial arts training background.

Van Damme helped write the movie alongside Mark DiSalle and Glenn A. Bruce. The movie spawned seven sequels, although Van Damme did not appear as his character Kurt Sloane in many of the official sequels, only costarring in three of them.

However, Operation: Kickboxer may bring Kurt Sloane back to the center of the action as he learns Muay Thai, the ancient kickboxing art that helped him avenge his brother in the original movie.

The new series will be produced by Todd Garner of Mortal Combat fame, as well as Dimitri Logothetis. Logothetis was responsible for rebooting the franchise into a new 2016 film called Kickboxer: Vengeance, which saw Van Damme return as a different character named Master Durand, and co-starred a host of martial arts veterans like Dave Bautista, Gina Carano and basketball player Luis Da Silva.

With production beginning on Operation: Kickboxer sometime in 2023, the show is confirmed to be keeping in line with the original martial arts theme but will involve espionage as Sloane’s brother is embroiled in a global conspiracy and will need his brother’s help to break free. Sloane will go undercover as a mixed martial arts fighter, taking on a champion fighter while also acquiring access to international targets during the operation.