The other day, I was hanging out over at The Rundown. Our Beer Buddy, Manodogs, was talking about an upcoming remake of the Wes Craven classic, House on the Left. It got me to thinking about all of the recent and upcoming remakes, not just of horror movies (the guy who directed Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit” video is going to be helming a Nightmare on Elm Street remake) but also of all the “classics“. For example; Orlando Bloom and Keira Knightly will star in Saturday Night Fever, Will Smith will direct a new Karate Kid and Zac Effron will fill Kevin Bacon’s shoes in a “re-imagined” Footloose. There are plenty of rumours on the internet about all of these, so I decided that I would start my own rumour in hopes that it would get passed around and eventually some movie studio exec would decide that it is really a good idea and would go ahead and make the project. Now all of you will be my witnesses that I thought of it first and then I can get an Executive Producer credit on the movie. So here’s the rumour that you can all pass along to anyone who will listen.
It was recently announced that a major Hollywood studio has secured the rights to produce a complete re-imagining of the classic film Casablanca. According to an inside source, McG (of Charlie’s Angels fame) has been tapped as the director. Early information has pointed to Will Smith assuming the role of Rick Blaine made famous by Humphrey Bogart, the female lead is expected to go Jennifer Lopez with the role of the piano player Sam being taken over by none other than Bruce Campbell. Although nothing has been confirmed yet, Will Smith’s people have indicated that “he may be open to” doing an unnamed project with McG.
Now, personally I completely support what Hollywood is doing with all their remakes/re-imagining. Why bother putting a whole lot of time and effort into creating something original when you can just take what someone else made, put one or two new twists on it, modernize it and then put you own name on it. That’s much easier. I do it all the time in the kitchen at The Redneck. I just remake something that I saw on the Food Network and then say it’s my own.