John Woo Producing 3D Remake of ‘The Killer’

The idea of remakes generally seems to irritate most serious movie fans. Remakes of older, classic films are (usually) annoying enough, but perhaps the worst remake sin Hollywood can commit is to remake a well-respected foreign language film in English.

However, if there’s money to be made then Hollywood will make (or remake) pretty much anything. Such is the case with the long-gestating remake of John Woo’s 1989 classic action flick, The Killer, originally starring Chow Yun Fat. An English language remake of The Killer has been in the cards for years, but after several unsuccessful attempts to remake it in English it looks like things are finally moving forward.

The news comes from an official press release (via Deadline): Essential Entertainment has joined forces with Woo’s own Lion Rock Productions to bring the Hollywood remake of The Killer to fruition… in 3D no less (did you actually expect it NOT to be in 3D at this point?).

The remake will be directed by John H. Lee (A Moment To Remember) from a script written by Josh Campbell (assistant editor on Blade II and Van Helsing). The film already has its lead, who will step into Chown Yun Fat’s intimidating shoes: Korean actor Jung Woo-sung, star of The Good, The Bad, The Weird (he played “The Good”).

Jung Woo-sung in 'The Good, The Bad, The Weird'

What may make this remake easier to swallow is the fact that Woo himself will be heavily involved as a full producer (read: not just attaching his name as exec producer to draw attention). In fact, Woo has been the greatest champion of a remake over the years as the original remains one of the favorite films he’s ever made.

Said Woo:

“While all my films are special to me, The Killer is truly one of my favorites. We are thrilled to reinvent it as an English-language film and know it’s in capable hands by the incredible visual style and tender emotion John H. Lee brings to all his films.”

On the chance that you’re unfamiliar with Woo’s original Killer, the film is about an elite assassin who accidentally blinds a young woman whilst on a job (in one of Woo’s many, many shootout sequences). He then takes on one last job in order to pay for the woman’s eyesight to be restored, but the gangster who hired him refuse to cough up the money. The titular killer then teams up with the detective who is out to catch him. Fans of the original can breathe a little easier as it looks like the plot won’t be altered much (if at all).

A key moment in the original 'The Killer'

Although Woo isn’t in the director’s chair for The Killer remake, he is the producer so he’ll likely have a lot of input as to how it turns out. He clearly loves his original film so I don’t think he’d allow a remake to drop the ball (at least we hope he wouldn’t).

This, of course, isn’t Woo’s first experience in Hollywood as he made Face/Off (arguably his most enjoyable film), Mission: Impossible II, Windtalkers, Hostage and Paycheck. Clearly Woo’s Hollywood career hasn’t been without fault, but at least he’s had experience and isn’t shepherding The Killer remake as a newbie to Hollywood feature filmmaking.

Does The Killer NEED to be remade? Obviously not and the fact that it will be in 3D doesn’t exactly helps matters. But I suppose we can always hang onto the fact that Woo himself is heavily involved.

I leave the rest of the discussion up to you: Is The Killer remake a good idea?

Source: Deadline

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‘Evil Dead’ Remake Still Alive?

Evil Dead and its sequels are the stuff of cult film legend. For years, die-hard fans have been yearning and begging for an Evil Dead 4 directed by Sam Raimi and starring Bruce Campbell as Ashley J. Williams, but as the years roll on, it just seems more and more unlikely.

Then of course, there’s the remake. A few years ago, an Evil Dead remake – possibly starring Seann William Scott as Ash – was being prepped by Raimi’s Ghost House Pictures. After a while, the project disappeared off the radar and was thought to be dead altogether. That is, until now.

Producer Robert Tapert, who has worked with Sam Raimi on just about every movie he has ever made, recently talked about the possibility of bringing the Evil Dead remake to the big-screen.

“[An Evil Dead remaking is still] possible; we’re looking at a script this month… What’s interesting about Evil Dead is very few people saw it in the format we made it for, which is for the theater […] I think Sam wants to embrace the ultimate experience in grueling terror and see it remade for a proper theatrical experience.”

I’m sorry, but couldn’t they just re-release Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2 and heck, even Army of Darkness in movie theaters? Wouldn’t that actually get people to watch the genuine article in theaters, as opposed to its shoddy, second-hand knockoff?

Evil Dead, like so many cult films, is a filmic phenomenon that cannot be reproduced. Are they going to try to capture the weirdness of it? The ridiculousness? The camp? If yes, then why even remake it at all? Or are they going to turn up the realism, turn up the horror and the production values, and make Evil Dead into something that it’s not? I just have no interest whatsoever in watching a standard gritty horror flick with Evil Dead’s name stamped across the header and shakycam like nobody’s business – unless Raimi himself is directing it, in which case I would begrudgingly give it a chance.

It probably goes without saying, but I’d much prefer to see an Evil Dead 4 set in the post-apocalyptic, deadite-ridden future. Sans 3D. Or perhaps with it. I suppose I would settle for with it, if I had to.

Source: Freep [via Slashfilm]

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Warner Bros. Wants Robert Zemeckis to Remake ‘Wizard of Oz’ [Updated]

[Update: PopWatch is reporting that Robert Zemeckis has declined doing The Wizard of Oz remake. Scroll for details.]

Another one bites the dust. That’s right, Hollywood’s never-ending (not to mention shameless) quest to remake every movie that has ever existed has claimed yet another victim. If you’re one of those rare human beings who somehow, someway managed to enjoy the 1998 remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho by Gus van Sant, then you’re going to love this.

According to Mike Fleming of Deadline, Warner Bros. wants Robert Zemeckis, who’s currently “filming” the motion-capture animated Yellow Submarine, to remake The Wizard of Oz using the original 1939 screenplay.

This won’t even be a redux in the form of an adaptation of the source material, like, say, Bram Stoker’s Dracula, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, or the forthcoming True Grit, thus providing new avenues for where the story can go.

Apparently, Warner Bros. owns the classic film’s screenplay because Ted Turner acquired it with his purchase of the MGM library. Warner Bros., of course, subsequently purchased Turner’s vast empire, thus acquiring the Wizard of Oz screenplay as well.

This bit of news comes right on the heels of the announcement that Disney and Sam Raimi are developing The Great and Powerful Oz, possibly starring Robert Downey Jr. Other Oz projects in development include Surrender Dorothy, a sequel to The Wizard of Oz to be directed by Drew Barrymore, and an unnamed Oz sequel from Warner Bros. about Dorothy’s granddaughter. No word yet on whether or not the latter film, with an original screenplay by Josh Olsen (A History of Violence), has been scrapped in favor of this Zemeckis remake.

Speak of the devil, I would love to see someone compile a list of all the remakes going back a decade alongside their critical and financial success rates. With every passing year, there seem to be more and more remakes and less and less original entries in big-budget cinema. Are these remakes so fiscally successful that they’re worth the artistic integrity of the studios and the filmmakers who churn them out?

The fact of the matter is, few people watch Psycho (1998) unless they’re being ironic. When someone mentions Manchurian Candidate, they likely don’t picture Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, and Meryl Streep, they more likely picture Frank Sinatra, Janet Leigh, and Angela Lansbury. And ten years from now, I hope that when someone wants to see a horror movie, they pick the original Halloween, not Rob Zombie’s.  It’s getting to the point where television is my main source for high-quality, original, live-action fiction, and that just makes me sad.

Sometimes I wish I could just click my heels together and wish the remakes away.

Hopefully, one day, we can live in a world free of remakes and rip-offs. But for now, we have Louis Letterrier’s Clash of the Titans, Samuel Bayer’s A Nightmare On Elm Street, and, if Warner Bros. gets their way, Robert Zemeckis’ The Wizard of Oz. I look forward (he said sarcastically) to Michael Bay’s Casablanca, now with twice as many sassy black women and 1,000,000% more nuclear explosions.

Source: Deadline

Update: Well, everybody can calm down now. PopWatch spoke to a source at Warner Bros. who said that while the studio did indeed have a meeting with Robert Zemeckis about potentially remaking The Wizard of Oz, Zemeckis wanted nothing to do with the project. (Score one for Zemeckis.) The source was quoted as saying, “The reports that Robert Zemeckis is doing The Wizard of Oz are absolutely false.” Well, to be fair, the reports merely stated that Warner Bros. wanted Robert Zemeckis to direct the remake, which seems to actually be confirmed via this report. Additionally, PopWatch seems to think that, because Zemeckis was the studio’s first choice for director, the project will either be moved to the back burner or abandoned altogether. Obviously, I’m pulling for the latter, but I’d feel a lot better if the source had said ‘nobody’ is doing The Wizard of Oz remake.

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