There has been talk of remaking Fletch for as long as I’ve followed the ups and downs of movie news. The most famous reboot / remake was to be helmed by Kevin Smith. Come to think about it, it was so endlessly talked about and hyped by Smith that we should have seen it as a sign of things to come….
But enough of that. According to Heat Vision, Warner Bros has bought the rights to Gregory McDonald’s novels, and have plans to reboot/remake the character. Steve Golin, Michael Sugar, and David List are producing, no writer or director has been attached yet.
I love the original Fletch. A lot of people do. Many of them will be screaming about the travesty of a remake.
But there’s just as many McDonald fans — if not more — who loathed Chase’s film, and have always wanted a more faithful adaptation of the character. They want the rest of the books put onto film. This may finally be their day.
It is tempting to scream and stomp about originality and the glut of remakes, but McDonald’s series is an untapped commodity. It should be adapted. Good detectives can survive numerous recastings and adaptations (how many Sherlocks have there been?), and the witty and weird Fletch is no exception. The Chevy Chase film will always be there — and what a delightful time capsule of humor it is — and the new one can be its own animal. It can actually be the Fletch of the books. Bring it on.
8 comments
Never saw the original Fletch, so I can’t really comment on the matter. This makes me want to rent Fletch though!
In all honesty, I always forget that Chase’s Fletch is a private detective. I think the film does, too, since the highlight comedy moment of the film is Chase getting dude’s finger up the ass.
I liked FLETCH as a kid. But hearing people talk about so fondly always leaves me a little bewildered. FLETCH? I’m curious about the books. The books have to explain the devotion. Have to. I don’t see in in either of the two movies.
I’ve read just about all of the books…and it is amazing how the dialogue and the sarcasm is miles beyond what Chase touched on in the original Fletch movies. I thought Ryan Reynolds would have been a great choice, but I think that time has come and gone. Fletch is a bit of a prick in the books, so you need someone that can pull that off, but still be likeable.
David duchovny?
Fletch isn’t a private detective– for some of the books he’s an investigative reporter– for lots of the others he’s just… Fletch. Interesting thing is, the first movie is actually incredibly faithful to the book– lots of same dialogue in fact– the difference is Chevy Chase. Just the way he interpreted the character. The Fletch of the books is actually more like the laid back cat Chevy Chase shows us undercover on the beach. Very effected by Vietnam, the Nixon era, very distrustful of authority, wry, witty– the smartest guy in the room. If they decide to start from scratch and go with Fletch Won, and run them in chronological, if not published order, they should go with Joseph Gordon Levitt or Dave Chapelle, James Roday, or you could just go full out and make it RDJ…
jack summed up my thoughts pretty well. The major departure in the movie from the book was the Gummy character, I believe. Was a female in the novel. And Fletch only used fake names, and didn’t play dress up, but the plot of the movie was pretty spot on. Fletch Lives, however, was completely made up crap. I, for one, am looking forward to some of the other books to be adapted to film. Hopefully faithfully.
as if people haven’t seen Fletch! I’ve even seen Fletch lives more times than i care to think about. Obviously Chase is totally impractical as choice but I’d be very interested to see who gets picked as the new fletch.
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