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The Daily Trade Round-Up / Daniel Carlson
Trade News | May 15, 2008 | Comments (54)
Today’s round-up is all about the remakes. Fair warning. Hey, there’s not much else going on.
I come before you this morning with incontrovertible evidence supporting the existence of a just and loving Creator who wants the best for us all: There will be a sequel to Point Break. The new film will be called Point Break: Indo, presumably because the superior Point Break: The Breakening was deemed too awesome for mortal man to conceive without having his mind completely blown. But there’s more: The sequel will be directed by Jan de Bont, which is just the perfect tonal choice. Hell, most people probably thought he directed the first one, but that one was actually helmed by Kathryn Bigelow, whose wildly disparate credits include K-19: The Widowmaker and a few episodes of “Homicide: Life on the Street,” among other things. Original screenwriter W. Peter Iliff — not a fake name — is returning to write the real-time sequel, which will take place 20 years after Patrick Swayze’s Bodhi surfed off into oblivion. The rest of the plot hasn’t been revealed, nor have any possible cast reprisals, but if Keanu Reeves is not in this I will personally walk the streets of Los Angeles and lead an army of destruction to his door.
In other ironic-but-real news involving the resurrection of decades-old pop culture, it was revealed this week that Jonah Hill is in negotiations with Sony to adapt the screenplay for and serve as executive producer on … wait for it … wait … waaaiitt … a big-screen version of “21 Jump Street.” I barely know where to begin with this one, but it’s possible Hill’s adaptation might not take the lowest road possible. It doesn’t seem likely that his version would be the kind of weird and self-reflexive kind of pseudo-comedy like Starsky & Hutch. There’s a chance that his modern-day adaptation might be just that, a comedy-action hybrid that takes the premise of cops undercover at a school and completely runs with it. No word yet on how many boner jokes the script will include. Just kidding: It’s 786.
And as it all that weren’t enough, news also came down this week that Nicolas Cage will star in a remake of Bad Lieutenant (holy shit) directed by Werner Herzog (holy shit). Pressman Film Corp. will produce the updated edition of its original, which was directed by Abel Ferrara and starred Harvey Keitel as the titular bad lieutenant. Who knows what direction Herzog will take the picture; maybe he’ll have Cage ride around L.A. on a grizzly bear.
I know what you’re all thinking: Sure, all that sounds well and good, but when will someone once more make a musical with Muppets? Well, fear not, for your freakish prayers have been answered. The Weinstein Co. is developing a live-action musical based on “Fraggle Rock” to be written and directed by Cory Edwards. The film will apparently focus on the characters of Gogo, Wembley, Mokey, Thisisfuckingweird, and Jeff as they leave the fraggly world of fraggles and interact with humans, who think they’re aliens and understandably overreact. No word yet on a filming or release schedule.
First up in this morning’s trailer watch is the clip for Visioneers. No description could do it justice:
Here’s the trailer for Woody Allen’s Vicky Cristina Barcelona. It’s a trying 80 seconds, so the feature film might be tough to watch, but come on, you and I both know you just wanna watch the scene where Scarlett Johansson and Penelope Cruz make out:
Daniel Carlson is the managing editor of Pajiba and a low-level employee at a Hollywood industry magazine. You can visit his blog, Slowly Going Bald.
Comments
Posted by: BiblioGeek at May 15, 2008 6:30 AM
Aww, Thisisfuckingweird was always my favorite Fraggle when I was a kid. My sisters and I used to fight to be him whenever we played Fraggle Rock.
I'm going to go start preparing now so that maybe I will be ready for the awesomeness of Point Break II: No, I've Never Shot My Gun Up in the Air and Gone "AHHH!" when it arrives. Oh, who am I kidding, it's going to catch us all by surprise.