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Right Now My Job Is Like an Ambulance Chaser. I Get Jobs Where White Guys Are Falling Out.

By Brian Prisco | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (15)

chris_akirarock_.jpg

If there’s one place to look for decent remake material, the most fertile property seems to actually be the ouevre of Akira Kurosawa. The Seven Samurai became the Magnificent Seven. Yojimbo became the perfectly enjoyable Last Man Standing. Hell, even Kurosawa borrowed from Shakespeare when he did Ran. Provided you take a running stab at creating a unique flavor and pay attention to the storyline, you can convert Kurosawa to something powerful and wondrous.

Mike Nichols has decided to direct the adaptation of Kurosawa’s High and Low, a seedy project with a dark premise: A wealthy businessman named Kingo Gondo prepares to pay the ransom when his son is kidnapped. He discovers that the kidnappers have accidentally taken the son of his chauffeur instead. Now, he must decide whether to pay the ransom and save his servant’s boy or instead invest his money to save the shoe company he’s mortgaged all his money to keep making quality shoes.

It’s a sordid project that could twist nicely in the right hands. David Mamet was all set to pen, but backed out so Nichols turned to the next logical choice. Chris Rock.

WHAT THE FUCK?!

Rock’s a funny motherfucker, and he’s actually an accomplished documentarian. But he’s motherfucking arsenic and old lace at the box office. ESPECIALLY when he’s doing remakes. Like a diarrhetic Shih Tzu, Rock took a French film and the gourmet Heaven Can Wait and digested them into the brown oozing stink of I Think I Love My Wife and Down to Earth. And he’s involved with the raping of the perfectly good Frank Oz flick Death at a Funeral into Tyler Perry Would Have Presented If Given the Chance Vultures Gnawing at a Still Kicking Corpse. (I go ahead and preemptively blame Tyler Perry for all the woes delivered on black people, it just saves time. If you do the math, you can actually prove that Perry gave syphilis to the Tuskegee Airmen. True story.)

I trust in Nichols, as he’s done Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, Catch-22, and The Birdcage. Granted, it’s a sliding scale of skill, but they’re all still decent adaptations. Whereas, Rock fucks up everything he sets his mitts on. Plus, this premise doesn’t exactly scream comedy, which is really more of Rock’s forte. If anything, I’m surprised they didn’t go with Perry, who’s heavy-handed morality would be more conducive to the plot.









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Comments

Tyler Perry murdered Medger Evers.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at April 14, 2010 9:38 AM

The only thing I really disagree with here is the continuing assumption here at Pajiba that the original "Death at a Funeral" was a good film. It really was mediocre and lacked the usual charm of the typical British farce. Even Dinklage couldn't lifet it above the distinct stench of "trying too hard to capitalize on Matthew McFadyen's success in Pride and Prejudice"

Posted by: PaddyDog at April 14, 2010 9:41 AM

Prisco, I think you're forgetting (deliberately?) that Yojimbo also became "A Fistful of Dollars", which was superior to "Last Man Standing." Kurosawa actually made more money by distributing AFoD in Japan, than he did with Yojimbo.

Posted by: KV at April 14, 2010 9:53 AM

Tyler Perry cast the deciding vote in the Dred Scott case.

Posted by: mrcreosote at April 14, 2010 10:06 AM

Awww, I wanted to call him out on "Fistful Of Dollars". Curse my metal body...

Posted by: Jay at April 14, 2010 10:15 AM

Tyler Perry wouldn't give Rosa Parks his seat.

Posted by: , at April 14, 2010 10:45 AM

It was Tyler Perry who hobbled Kunta Kinte.

Posted by: Jerce at April 14, 2010 11:15 AM

Tyler Perry booked Martin Luther King's room at the Lorraine Motel, telling him, "C'mon, who wouldn't want a room with a balcony?"

Posted by: Jim Doggie at April 14, 2010 11:29 AM

Tyler Perry was in charge of levy maintenance in New Orleans.

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at April 14, 2010 12:13 PM

I'm with Paddydog. I tried to watch the original "Death at a Funeral" and couldn't get through it. It isn't all that. But it is true that Tyle Perry told Lee Harvey Oswald that the Book Depository was a good place to watch Kennedy's convoy in Dallsas.

Posted by: khia213 at April 14, 2010 1:28 PM

I watched High and Low in a class about film adaptation, and interestingly enough it's based on a pulp mystery novel called King's Ransom. We read a few pages of the source material and it was fairly mediocre. This just sounds like the whole thing is coming full circle.

Posted by: antoinette jeanine at April 14, 2010 1:48 PM

Hey don't forget about Django, which was also loosely based off Yojimbo, which was in remade into a japanese anime and the Takashi Miike's Samurai western Django. Isn't Italian/japanese copycatting fun?

Oh by the way I heard Tyler Perry made sweet love to a monkey then a woman thus creating the AIDS virus...

Posted by: Blank at April 14, 2010 2:36 PM

Tyler Perry worked with the CIA, Big Pharma, Central American drug cartels, and the Mob to bring crack to the inner cities.

Posted by: mrcreosote at April 14, 2010 2:48 PM

mrcreosote, it's more like the CIA, et al., worked with Tyler Perry to bring crack to inner cities.
When the big guys want a job done with no accountability on their part, they call in a professional.
T-Perry: keeping bruthas down since '98.

Posted by: Jim Doggie at April 14, 2010 4:03 PM

Tyler Perry beat David Mamet

P.S. David freakin' Mamet could have wrote this film. Fuck Chris Rock.

Posted by: Corey Weaver at April 15, 2010 7:57 AM