Please Let Russell Brand Die Before He Drops Dead
Drop Dead Fred Coming Up /
Dustin Rowles
Trade News | April 28, 2009 | Comments (39)
The summer of my 16th year on Earth, I had what I’d hoped would be a decidedly Kevin Arnold moment. I met a girl from a neighboring town at the swimming pool. We hit it off, by which I mean — by the end of the day, we were splashing each other and I was tickling her in the hopes that I’d brush up against a boob. (I should also note that meeting teenage girls in your bathing suit is not always a spectacular idea, which is to say that George Costanza is full of shit.) Anyway, I worked up the nerve to ask this young lady to go to the movie with me, convinced that we were somehow meant to be. To my surprise, she actually said yes. And we agreed to go see “Drop Dead Fred” together. I’d already seen “Drop Dead Fred,” and I despised it, but it was all that was playing at our local theater.
Anyway, she stood me up. And I was left, again, to watch “Drop Dead Fred,” and no amount of Phoebe Cates could make Rik Mayall a bearable presence. That movie was a big old hemorrhoid pile of bloody suck.
So, of course Universal Pictures is remaking it. And as if the original Drop Dead Fred weren’t obnoxious enough, they’ve decided to amp up the annoying factor by making the remake a vehicle for Russell Brand, who is quickly bearing Seth’s one-movie wonder prediction out. Dennis McNicholas, who is one of the writers on the upcoming Land of Lost is set to pen the script. Universal is looking for a version of Drop Dead Fred that’s a little darker, more like Beetlejuice, apparently.
For those unfamiliar with the original, it’s about a woman (Phoebe Cates) who loses her job and her husband over the course of her lunch hour. Suddenly, the imaginary friend from her childhood, Drop Dead Fred, appears to annoy the ever living shit out of her. and I’ll give Universal this: If they had to do a remake, they couldn’t have found a better person than Brand for the role. He was born to be this level of obnoxious.
Here’s the trailer for the original — look for Carrie Fisher.
Comments
Posted by: socalledonlycousins at April 28, 2009 10:20 AM
Brand pretty much defines the "funny in small doses/lethally unfunny beyond that" category of entertainer. As soon as this type is asked to carry the load, it all goes "poof!" in a giant cloud of Not Funny. Other examples: Rosie O'Donnell (circa 2001; any dose is fatal now), Jack Black, and Jonah Hill. Seth Rogen and Seann William Scott flirt with this category, as both are challenged when they have to function as the center of gravity for a feature film.