 Remakes/Reboots: Conan, Predators and the Rest!
Some Film Projects Fall While Others on the Rise!
Reported By: ABking
Friday, June 5, 2009
Is it a smart business move to reboot past Arnold Schwarzenegger films? I mean, Arnold is Arnold, and to try to reboot well made classics like TOTAL RECALL would seem smart on paper, but the execution could be stupid, silly and most important, financially dumb.
According to Variety, Columbia Pictures has set Kurt Wimmer to write "Total Recall," the remake of the 1990 sci-fi pic that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Wimmer has been working with the studio on "Salt,"the Phillip Noyce-directed espionage thriller starring Angelina Jolie. Wimmer wrote the story for that film and shares screen credit with Brian Helgeland. Wimmer also co-wrote the F. Gary Gray-directed "Law Abiding Citizen," which stars Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler, for the Film Department.
"Total Recall" was resurrected for remake earlier this year by the studio and producer Neal Moritz and his Original Films banner. Pic will be a contemporized adaptation of the science fiction saga based on the Philip K. Dick story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale." Columbia secured remake rights from Miramax, which has the option to co-finance the film when it is ready to shoot.
Next on the remake/reboot band wagon is Schwarzenegger's 80's action classic COMMANDO. This film should only be sequelized with older Arnie as John Matrix and Alyssa Milano as Jenny. The reason being is that Commando has already been done to death numerous times, most recently with Liam Neason in TAKEN.
JOBLO.COM reports on the Commando remake.
Take a story like Commando with a ex-bad ass special forces type and try to remake it, then it seems like a direct-to-dvd type movie. Even John Cena's THE MARINE was Commando-light. If COMMANDO is going to get rebooted, why not write a great story with older John Matrix (Arnold back in the role) and the now older and sexy Milano back. It would sell way more tickets to have the two stars of the original back. Update COMMANDO 2 like how RAMBO was updated in 2008 but call it COMMANDOS. Bingo, Fox would have a huge hit on there hands.
Heck, Russia has already done a remake of Commando. WorstPreviews Says "When Arnold Schwarzenegger leaves the Governor's mansion, he could easily return to Hollywood since most of his old movies are currently being remade. First there was the new "Terminator" franchise, then "Predator," then "Total Recall" and now "Commando."
JoBlo is reporting that Australian magazine called RCI is claiming that "Commando" is being considered for a remake. Not much more information is given, but the site has confirmed "whispers" at 20th Century Fox about moving forward with a new film.
The original 1985 movie revolves around a retired elite commando (Schwarzenegger), who has only a few hours to find and rescue his daughter (Alyssa Milano) from an exiled dictator.
This wouldn't be the first time that "Commando" would be remade, Russia made their own copy last year.
As you can see, reboots are the "In thing" in Hollywood right now. Somtimes, a crafty writer can make gold out of an old classic. But more often than not, the reboot pales in comparrison to the original. Even sequels such as INDIANA JONES AND THE KINGDOM OF THE CRYSTAL SKULL suck and it's not a reboot but a straight sequel. Hell, they're even now rebooting Ridely Scott's ALIEN.
This brings me to the idea of rebooting Arnold properties without Arnold. The Conan filmmakers want a Conan film without Arnold which is not smart. CONAN is not even a billion dollar movie property and they want to reboot CONAN THE BARBARIAN instead of making KING CONAN with Schwarzenegger as the lead and John Milius directing...WTF! Look at it this way, T4 has a little Arnold cameo and it will gross about 125 million domestic. So what would a new Arnold-less Conan film gross with an unknown musclehead barbarian and no Arnold involved? Maybe 25 million domestic is my guess. KING CONAN starring Arnold Schwarzenegger is the only film the fans want and that spells bigger money at the box-office, especially overseas!
Empire magazine spoke to Conan and Red Sonja producer Joe Gatta today, and he had a few revelations to share about the upcoming films. Most importantly, it appears that Brett Ratner is currently off Conan, which he was expected to direct. "We’re currently in the process of hiring a director. We have a potential start-date on Conan of August 24. And we’ll be shooting in Bulgaria. Conan is our crown jewel here at the company and that will be the leader. Red Sonja probably won’t happen until next year, as far as making it goes. So we want to launch Conan and reinvent the franchise." As for the hiring of Conan himself, you might want to start pumping some serious iron: Gatta says that, "We’ll have an open casting call as soon as we hire our director."
At least director Robert Rodriguez is writing PREDATORS with a co-starring role for Schwarzenegger back as military bad ass Dutch.
MOVIEHOLE.NET editor Clint Morris says "I had the opportunity to talk to someone fairlyclosely connected to Troublemaker studios about the upcoming ‘’Predators’’ (a flick that initially had me drowning in a pool of angst sweat ... right up until it was revealed the film wouldn’t be a remake, but a sequel) this morning. I’d been making calls for a day or two, looking into a rumour we'd been tipped off to. ABKing, the renowned Schwarzenegger-spruiker of the world wide web, got in touch yesterday and said he’d heard from an anonymous source that Rodriguez had ''reached out to Schwarzenegger'' in recent days.
But even AB couldn’t be sure, so I promised I’d look into it. I finally got onto someone in-the-know this morning, who confirmed that Rodriguez is indeed courting Schwarzenegger for the movie – but so far it’s a one-way conversation.
“Robert’s camp has just reached out to Arnie’s [camp]”, we were informed. “But they haven’t had a response yet."
Clint says Arnold is busy being Governor and probably hasn’t had a chance to get back to Rodriguez yet. “They’ve written a role for him” a second source later told us via email. Rodriguez is as against the idea of a straight-up remake as much as anyone – which is why they’re considering this an official sequel to John McTiernan’s film. Like Terminator, they know Schwarzenegger’s a vital ingredient of the franchise. Ideally, Arnold will see it that way too. Ball is in his court now."
Schwarzenegger would reprise his role as Major Alan "Dutch" Schaefer, the canon-armed Special Forces leader who took on the “ugly mother-f-er” in the Jungle back in the Reagan-era. Dutch won’t be the main character in the film, but he will play a part (again, if Schwarzenegger agrees) in the film.
Arnold's next film is going to be 2010's THE EXPENDABLES. There is talk that Arnie's cameo role may get a little larger. Sheryl Main, who is one of Sly's aides for The Expendables says "as for Arnold, how much time he can devote to his “cameo” depends on what is happening in California. But Sly promises every minute of Arnold’s screen time will deliver. Since I worked with Arnold for 13 years it will be fun to be back on a set with him and Sly."
As for Arnold's future, the oak asked his loyal fans a month ago to twitter him about what future action films he should make if he decides to come back to Hollywood. Here is my personal blockbuster list Arnie:
THE EXPENDABLES (This is your first actual appearance in films again, so make it an iconic role)
PREDATORS ("Predator" directed by John McTiernan is so iconic in the action film world, you need to bring Dutch back in Robert Rodriguez's "Predators" due out July 2010)
TRUE LIES 2 (Get James Cameron to come back and direct the sequel with the entire gang from the first film. The world is ripe for a new spy film from Arnold Schwarzenegger and James Cameron)
TERMINATOR 5 (Get James Cameron to executive produce this and make T5 the finale Terminator film. You can finally play the human resistance soldier whom the T-800 terminator was based on and you can also play the evil T-800 from "The Terminator" and "Terminator Salvation")
KING CONAN (If there is anyway you and John Milius can make one last Conan film, please do so because this is the # 1 film the fans want to see you make. It's the perfect role because you can play King Conan at any age)
COMMANDO 2 (Arnold and Alyssa Milano should return and update the story of older bad ass John Matrix in a kick ass sequel like how Sly did with 2008's RAMBO)
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ABking
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