A remake of a Kurosawa film… you’re already on dangerous ground. But when it’s Mike Nichols directing from a David Mamet script, I’m at least willing to listen. The film in question is High & Low, the story of a business man whose child is kidnapped and held for ransom. The original starred the inimitable Toshiro Mifune, and it’s a really great film – and I think it’s underrated since people tend to focus on Kurosawa’s samurai cinema.
Now Chris Rock is writing the remake, according to AOL Black Voices. What the hell? How did Chris Rock get into the remake racket so heavily? And how did somebody decide that Chris Rock was the dude to write a police procedural?
For those playing along at home, Rock’s remakes have been:
Down to Earth – a remake of the Warren Beatty film Heaven Can Wait
I Think I Love My Wife – a remake of Eric Fucking Rohmer’s Chloe in the Afternoon
Those are the ones he wrote. He’s starred in:
Death at a Funeral – a remake of Death at a Funeral, a British film from two years ago
The Longest Yard
Dr. Dolittle
Sgt. Bilko (which I guess is really an adaptation, but close enough).
And he’s optioned The First Star, a 2009 French film, as well!
I don’t know, this whole thing feels like a comedy bit. I feel like I’m in a weird alternate universe where Sarah Silverman is about to write a remake of Au Hasard Balthazar.
Wait, did I get my excruciatingly awful 80s cartoons based on toys mixed up in my headline? Oh my!
There are two new dudes taking the scripting duties for a big screen treatment of He-Man (notice how we always pretend that it was called Masters of the Universe, which sounds kind of cool, when it was really the ultra-awful He-Man and the Masters of the Universe?), and they’re the dudes who wrote Predators.
Mike Finch and Alex Litvak have signed on to write the movie for Columbia, and in case you’re worried about their take on the material… well, get a grip if you’re a grown up worried about someone’s take on He-Man. God love you, you’re getting worried about the integrity of a property that includes a guy named STINKOR.*
Anyway, here’s their take:
In their pitch, the scribes attempted to balance a treatment that would convince the studio it was cinematic and keep the toy company satisfied that its characters were being portrayed appropriately.
I know that so many young screenwriters are sitting out there saying to themselves, ‘Someday I hope to get a job where most of my creative effort will go into a balancing act to keep two different gargantuan corporations happy.’ That’s really why we got into the movies in the first place, right?
* before you get all up in arms at my casual dismissal of the He-Man property, know that I too owned Castle Greyskull. I read the He-Man comics from DC. But I’m now a grown man and realize there is nothing to this property of any value.
7 comments
And I can't get another film made.
but devin, you also enjoy planet of the apes and star trek to an alarming degree! Of course i jest…sort of
Uh, #2, your observation would hold water if you could point out even ONE awesome in He-Man, compared to the plethora of awesomes in star trek and PotA. You can't.
He-Man's not for grown ups the way Spider-Man is.
People fuck in the Spiderman universe at least. And Spiderman was invented as a comicbook character, not a way to sell re-headed Conan toys. But that said, is any of that He-Man shit still around? The movie will likely have to appeal to the nostalgic adults who then get suckered into buying their kids all-new He-Man crap.
I don't see why Master of the Universe OR Thundercats couldn't make a decent fantasy action adventure. The bets are they won't, but they COULD. That fake Thundercats trailer a couple of years back was certainly convincing enough. And heck, they can't produce any bigger pile of shite than Transformers.
It sounds suspiciously to me like the main problem that's being had is that the writers keep trying to make movies that don't completely suck and aren't completely beyond the pale for any sane adult to see, and Mattel probably wants something just as "kid friendly" as the 80's cartoon was.
Comments are shown as archived from the original site; new comments are closed.