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Category Archives: Remakes

PLAYING ‘SCARED’ – WARNER BROS THINKS WE ALL NEED “THE BODYGUARD” AGAIN

24 Feb

I get a little bit tired of people ‘playing scared.’ If we read the news, or see people getting Grammys this year, they say ‘they feel insecure’ or a little bit scared. It’s like we’re all supposed to walk around with ten bodyguards each or something.

Look, enemies exist in our own heads. We create them. The rest is marketing ploys to make bank and rule the money. Yawn.

Anyway, in Hollywood remakes news, Warner Bros. the film studio we most loved (because we’ve given them the most money for movie tickets out of any other Hollywood film studio the past ten years) think we need a film, that stars a central character, in need of protection. The protagonist hero is a bodyguard. Here we go again.

According to Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood, “EXCLUSIVE: Warner Bros is rebooting its 1992 hit The Bodyguard, the film that paired Kevin Costner with Whitney Houston and became for its time one of the biggest global hits in studio history with a $411 million worldwide gross.

The film will be scripted by Jeremiah Friedman and Nick Palmer, whose action comedy scriptFamily Getaway made the 2010 Black List and is a priority project at Warner Bros. Dan Lin will produce through his Lin Pictures banner, and Mark Bauch is co-producer.

Scripted by Lawrence Kasdan and directed by Mick Jackson, the original was a fairly straight ahead tale of a Secret Service agent (Costner in a Steve McQueen homage, down to his hairstyle) drafted to protect a singing diva whose life has been threatened by a stalker, then falling for her in a way he fears is a distraction from his job. The new version is similar, including the love story, but here the bodyguard will be a former Iraq war veteran who gets the job protecting the star as his first gig after leaving the Army. He discovers that the world of Twitter, Google Maps and TMZ has made access to celebrities easier than ever, making the job more difficult than ever. The goal is to take a young female singer with global appeal and give her the platform that The Bodyguard did Houston.

It becomes the second music-driven remake for the studio, which just got a commitment from Clint Eastwood to direct Beyonce. The studio is in the process of landing the male star.

Lin just wrapped Sherlock Holmes 2, and is producing with Kevin McCormickGangster Squad, which Ruben Fleischer will direct. He is also developing theLEGO Movie, which has Phil Lord and Christopher Miller attached to direct. The scribes are repped by UTA and Mosaic.”

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What do you think of Nikki’s words. Is this movie needed or not? If so, should Rihanna – the biggest selling pop diva in the UK and the current holder of no.1 hits in the USA this decade, star in it as the lead? Or should Taylor Swift? Anyway, will there be any room left on screen for an actor to have any screen time, by the time all of the social media IT companies storylines and ‘product’ placements have been written into this new script? Gosh, let’s hope the love story, about the SECURE PERSON WITHIN ONE’S SELF… still shines from the original.

Critique aside, I’m all for a remake. It’s all about the leading lady being amazing as Whitney Houston was in the last film. The original, created some amazing moments of entertainment –all those awards shows performances Whitney did from the soundtrack, were the big highlights of peoples romance lives, way back then. Why not do it again! It was feel good stuff.

~Posted by Horiwood.Com, Hollywood California USA. 2.23.11~

 
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Posted by horiwood on February 24, 2011 in America, Movie Ideas, Movie News, Pop Art, Pop Cultural Commentary, Remakes, Romance, Security Industries, Social Media, Social Networking, Star System - The Art of American Celebrity, Superpowers discourse and direction