Wednesday, January 28, 2009
COULD BE AMAZING
This could be amazing. I stress the word could. Variety's Michael Flemming is reporting that Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin' Aces) is set to direct a big-budget re-imagining of the 70's television series The A-Team, with Ridley and Tony Scott (Black Hawk Down, Enemy of the State) set to produce. The screenwriting duties are being given to action-auteur Skip Woods (Swordfish, this summer's GI Joe, and many, many uncredited rewrites). No intended rating was provided by Fleming in his report. However, this is an action film that NEEDS to be rated-R. No doubt about it. And with the involvement of Carnahan and the Scotts, it might be safe to assume that they'd be gunning for an R-rating as well, as creatively, it will provide them with zero action-related restrictions. The one major problem with this project, and it is major, is that Fox is funding it. And the people at Fox, for the most part, suck donkey balls. They've apparently neutered Gavin Hood's long-shooting Wolverine and they're generally known for screwing around with a lot of their genre material. They did, after all, hire Brett Ratner to take a giant shit on the X-Men franchise with the third installment. That said, it's possible that someone, maybe a young exec, sees that this is a property that can't be fucked with. I am not saying that the original The A-Team is some sort of masterpiece or a cultural landmark that shouldn't be touched. It was time-filler crap with an attitude that was fun in a cheesy way. But the idea for the show is timeless: a group of war-vets (who now, rather than Vietnam, will be coming from the Middle East) are convicted of armed robbery and escape from military prison, only to became do-gooder mercenaries. Besides the name-brand recognition of what The A-Team means to pop culture society, this is an inherently exciting action-movie scenario, that with the right flair (and with Carnahan and the Scotts on board you know there will be flair) and the right sensibility, could really become a great summer movie. I will be following this one closely, and hope that the new rounds of casting will yield some great decisions. The film is aiming for a summer 2010 release.
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3 comments:
Yeah, the people at Fox could learn a thing or two. You didn't mentioned there beef with "Watchmen," though. They settled it before the trial date, yes, but they still had a rather unclear problem.
I loved "A-Team" back in the day, and the Scotts are awesome for the most part, and I like Carnahan, but I don't have any faith in this being even halfway watchable in the end. Maybe I'll be wrong. I know I"m a vocal minority on this, but if Hollywood can't manage a watchable "Transformers", than what hope does "A- Team" have? For every "Dark Knight", there's about 400 "XMen3"s.
Well, being a huge fan of what Bay did with Transformers, if Carnahan makes a film that's as outright entertaining as Bay did, I will be pleased.
Now, they are two totally different beasts -- Transformers is a special effects movie aimed, primarily, at kids. The A-Team, should, and could, be a bad-ass, adult-oriented action movie. If the gutless fucks at Fox proceed with a PG-13 version of this property, I will be serverly disappointed and not anywhere near as interested.
Considering Ridley's most unfortunate experience with Fox over his director's cut of Kingdom of Heaven, I am surprised that he'd be up for working with them again. Just proves one thing about Hwood: Cash is King.
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