Why Hollywood Can't Stop Remaking the Same 4 Stories
Hey, we love a good fairy tale just as much as the next person. (Don't even ask how many fancy-font Rumpelstiltskin tramp stamps adorn our bodies.) But even we know you can only get so much of a good thing before audiences say they never want to hear the word "Sherlock" again.
Too bad nobody told these guys.
(Nobody told US the ancient pyramids glowed white, or that U.S. Grant was a giant wuss. That's why we wrote the De-Textbook.)
Three Peter Pans Are Currently in Development
It's been just about a decade since the last live-action appearance of Peter Pan, and Hollywood has suddenly decided that's been 10 years too long. The remedy? Not one, not two, but three different Peter Pan remakes.
In November it was announced that the director of Pride and Prejudice and Atonement will be taking on the new Warner Bros. Peter Pan flick, which will focus on our green boy's mysterious past. And considering Joe Wright's previous projects, we can probably expect a sex scene or 20 and a whole lot of emotionally charged cleavage.
Hopefully they can bring Bob Hoskins' gay Smee out of retirement.
Sony has been trying to get a Peter Pan off the ground since 2011, casting Channing Tatum to squeeze into what would be the tightest Pan outfit ever. Sony's movie has been tentatively titled Peter Pan Begins, which is ... another origin story. Well, at least Disney's new Peter Pan won't be another origin story, right? Apparently, the new Disney Pan movie is based on the Peter and the Starcatchers novel, which ... focuses on our green daredevil's backstory. Woohoo.
"Second-tier novel rights and straight on 'til money."
At least Javier Bardem might play Blackbeard the Pirate in the latter film, undoubtedly to feed his penchant for goddamn silly bad-guy haircuts.
We've Got Four Different Wizard of Oz Shows Coming
The 1939 MGM classic The Wizard of Oz is approaching its 75th anniversary, and the TV world is under the impression that the 2013 combo of Sam Raimi and James Franco wasn't enough to piss on the family-friendly franchise by itself. Why? Because there are four different studios making four different Oz train wrecks.
Nothing you love is safe.
And the theme that holds them together? Gritty. Clint Eastwood dipped in hard-boiled gravel grit. Syfy's Warriors of Oz involves a present-day warrior transported to post-apocalyptic Oz. The CW's Dorothy Must Die reimagines Dorothy as an evil dictator over Oz with a dystopian reign of terror. CBS's Dorothy will put the beloved Oz characters in the setting of a New York medical drama ... somehow. NBC's upcoming Emerald City is described as a "dark reimagining of the classic tale of Oz in the vein of Game of Thrones."
Christ on a cracker, with all of this "dark" and "gritty" hype, unless we see the Tin Man feed the Cowardly Lion's dismembered dingus to the Scarecrow while Dorothy sits by in chains, we're going to be severely disappointed.
Another Tarzan Will Begin Filming Right After We See the New Tarzan
Over the last few months, select A-list celebrities have been approached to join the casting of the upcoming Tarzan movie, which will begin filming next summer. Notable names include True Blood's Alexander Skarsgard, who'll play Tarzan, and Christoph Waltz, cast as Tarzan's rival. With David Yates, who directed the last four Harry Potter films, on board and Emma Stone on the shortlist for Jane, it seems the next Tarzan might not be excruciating.
"If only there were a British Emma, with whom I had a working relationship, that I could cast ... Oh, well."
That is ... if we didn't already have a next Tarzan. Two weeks ago, we got a trailer for a weird-looking upcoming CG Tarzan flick, which is due for release before the summer of 2014, just a few months before they start filming the new new Tarzan. The trailer has Tarzan fighting helicopters over land-use rights to a meteor or something
You SOBs never gave Casper Van Dien a fair shake.
And if you've been hounding for another remake of the old tale of the demigod boy who was born because his god dad couldn't keep it in his immortal pants, there's not one but two different big-budget Herculean remakes coming out over the next year, with Hercules, starring The Rock, and Hercules: The Legend Begins, starring the other vampire from Twilight, Kellan Lutz.
We really have no idea what Hercules actually looked like.
Lutz's Hercules will be hitting the screens in February 2014, only five months before Dwayne Johnson's Hercules in July. And neither of them are beating down untrodden paths: Johnson's Hercules is based on a gritty graphic novel called Hercules: The Thracian Wars, whereas Lutz's Hercules showcases our hero fighting for his life in a coliseum. Realistically, we can probably throw the new 300 movie, which comes out in March, into this lineup, because that's all the same swords-and-sandals shit.
Hercules, without the daddy issues.
The third part of XJ's epic science-fiction novel is out now on Amazon. The first $0.99 novella can be found here, with Part 2 out here. Or leave a review and get a free copy! Poke him on Twitter, too.
