‘The Long Good Friday’ To Become A TV Series; ‘Transporter’ Gets Greenlit By Cinemax
As we mentioned earlier today in our "Pirates of the Caribbean" sequel story, Hollywood loves nothing more than taking a single property and finding new ways to draw money from the same well over and over and over again. The formula keeps working because everyone keeps handing over their money for these movies no matter how diminishing the returns. And from a studio perspective, it costs far less to simply dust off an old piece of material than to get an original project off the ground. That’s the game that’s being played today, so no shock then that two more films are getting spitshined for new, and probably, blander versions.Former Handmade Films Intl. execs Guy Collins, Michael Ryan and Fred Hedman are prepping Terry Gilliam‘s "Time Bandits" for a redo. The original film, an admittedly eccentric but no less entertaining movie, followed a young boy who time traveled with a bunch of dwarves stealing treasure. Frankly, we think it’s fine for kids to see today as it is, but not so says Collins, Ryan and Hedman who want to make a much more family friendly franchise version of the movie. No word yet if Gilliam, who directed and co-wrote the film with Michael Palin, will be involved, but our guess is that he won’t. So parents, you have a choice: be the cool Dad or Mom who shows your kid the ’80s original or the lame Dad or Mom who just throws their kid in front of whatever is showing at the multiplex. The choice is yours.
Meanwhile, in a bit of good news/bad news/interesting news, Paul W.S. Anderson ("Resident Evil") won’t be touching the stone cold classic "The Long Good Friday" for a remake as was announced a couple of years ago. However, instead of a big screen version, the film is now being eyed for a small screen series with Ray Winstone apparently interested (well, that’s actually kind of awesome) with Paul McGuigan ("Push," "Lucky Number Slevin") directing (less promising). We’ll give this a tentative pass for now, we guess, if only because Winstone fucking rules.
Finally, remember last year when it was revealed that television series were being developed for "The Transporter" and "Taken"? Well, one of them is moving forward as Cinemax (lol) has greenlt a 12-episode run for "The Transporter." No word yet on who will take on the title role — and we never thought we’d say this — but Jason Statham‘s shoes will be hard to fill. As one-dimensional as he is, he is still uniquely that character. Production begins this summer. [Variety/Deadline]