Hollywood Revisit Wall Street and Drop Dead Fred
And Brings The Milli Vanilli Story to the Big Screen
May 6, 2009
It's May, which means that Hollywood has spent weeks gearing up for the opening box office salvos of Summer 2009. X-Men Origins: Wolverine started strong, posting $US85 million at the North American box office in its first weekend, and J.J. Abram's revitalization of the Star Trek franchise looks likely to do even better. And there's more to come: Terminator Salvation opens in a matter of weeks and Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen will hit screens across the globe in late June, with Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince following in July.
In fact, with these tried and true franchise cash cows raking in the proverbial Benjamins, you'd be forgiven for thinking that it will be some time before Hollywood really starts scrambling for ideas and throwing money at just about any old project. The truth is, they always have, and they always will. Yet, in terms of quality, the last couple of weeks may well rank among the worst in terms of Hollywood project announcements, with ideas running the gamut from the plain unnecessary to the unfeasibly laughable.
Gone are the days of remaking successful films from Europe, Asia or the deepest recesses of the tinsel town back catalogue. These days, Hollywood will look to anything and everything for a quick buck. Here is just a taste of what we're likely to see on our silver screen in the coming years:
Drop Dead Fred: The Remake
Yep, you read right. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Universal are revamping the 1991 original which starred Phoebe Cates as a down and out young woman who moves back in with her parents and rediscovers her childhood imaginary friend, played by the consistently brilliant Rik Mayall. The film received a critical drubbing on release and failed to realise its potential at the box office, but has since gained something of a cult following. Which begs the question, is it really deserving of a remake?
Universal think so. So far, they have recruited Legally Blonde and Wanted producer Marc Platt and
screenwriter Dennis McNicholas, a former Saturday Night Live scribe who wrote this years Will Ferrell vehicle Land of the Lost and is working on a feature-length H.R. Pufnstuf script for Columbia. But it gets better: the primary motivation for a Drop Dead Fred remake is to find an outlet for Hollywood's next megastar (and its favourite haggard goth scarecrow) Russell Brand. Expect a car crash. Really.
Wall Street 2: Revenge of the Bankers
Numero uno on the list of blatantly unnecessary, opportunistic sequels is Twentieth Century Fox's planned follow-up to 1987's tale of greed and excess, Wall Street. Admittedly, like most Hollywood projects it has been in the works for some time, but only recently received the green light with the announcement that Oliver Stone will return as director and Michael Douglas will reprise his role as the loathsome Gordon Gekko.
Unsurprisingly, whilst the original worked on Reganomics and the "greed is good" mantra, Wall Street II (working title, of course) is set to echo the current state of global financial affairs. Perhaps we should expect to see Gekko in the eye of the storm, repenting his sins in public whilst privately totting up his off-shore accounts and wringing his hands with glee whilst buying out companies at bargain basement prices? Or maybe he will be a reformed figure, turning into a corporate whistleblower of the highest order? Either way, given Oliver Stone's recent form and his preponderance for treating touchy subjects in a controversial manner, there is a slight chance this could be rather good, a kind of decline and fall of western civilization for the globalisation era.
What's Yours Is Mime: The Milli Vanilli Story
Do not adjust your set, this is no belated April fools. For the young and the (inexplicably) uninitiated, Milli Vanilli were a rather notorious late 80s pop duo who took a very sharp turn from riches to rags when it was revealed that they were little more than a mime act, leading to returned Grammys and tragically fatal drug addictions. Serial offenders Universal bought the rights to the Malli Vanilli story back in 2007, and now they seem to finally be making good on their threat.
With a tale that is usually the preserve of the direct-to-video or made-for-TV set, Digital Spy recently reported that the Milli Vanilli film is likely to be helmed by no less than Hollywood über-director Brett Ratner (he of the Rush Hour and X-Men franchises). Once signed on, Ratner will be reunited with screenwriter Jeff Nathanson who penned Ratner's contribution to the forthcoming portmanteau film New York, I Love You, and scrawled both Rush Hour sequels as well as Speed 2: Cruise Control. Expect a sub-Dreamgirls romp through late 80s pop, with some horrible one-liners.
Excited? Yeah, you are.
 |
