Brett Ratner's Building a Time Machine ... Out of a DeLorean?
Before you start twitching and shaking uncontrollably at the thought of Brett Ratner remaking Back to the Future, that's not what's going on here ... thank god. Instead, Variety tells us Ratner is teaming with James Toback and producer Robert Evans on a biopic about the rise and fall of the innovative car designer John DeLorean, whose car is most widely remembered as being used as a time machine in the Back to the Future trilogy.
Oh yes, if you're not a child of the 80s or a car nut, you probably have no idea who John Delorean is or that the Delorean automobile was named after an actual dude ... and that his story is interesting enough to spawn not one biopic, not two biopics, but three freakin' biopics!. The second film, which doesn't seem to have quite the star power as the first, involves producers David Permut and Steven Lee Jones, who are working off the life rights of Delorean's longtime attorney, Mayer Morganroth. The third teams Time Inc. Studios and XYZ Films on a biopic that will come from old magazine articles.
So what's so fascinating about John DeLorean other than the fact that you can turn his car into a time machine by adding a flux capacitor? Well, turns out the guy was busted by the FBI back in 1982 on charges of drug trafficking in an apparent attempt to raise funds for his damaged company, which later went bankrupt that same year. However, DeLorean defended himself in court and won by claiming the FBI tried to set him up. Ratner will direct the film with Toback writing the script, which, from the looks of it, will be very pro DeLorean and simply tell the rise-and-fall story of a great entrepreneur who beat the system, but lost his dream in the process.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-09-2009 @ 11:41AM
Rick Bman said...
Sounds like it could be interesting... can we get a real director though... please?
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6-09-2009 @ 12:09PM
Andy said...
Yeah, I agree. Sounds interesting.
It was a wild ride for that guy. Plus it will be cool to see the late 70's, early 80s again.
Sort of sounds like 'Tucker: A Man and His Dream' with Jeff Bridges, just in the 70s/80s. Great movie by the way, if you haven't seen it. Francis Ford Coppola directed...with a young Joan Allen, vroom vroom.
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6-09-2009 @ 1:05PM
gottacook said...
Any John Z. DeLorean bio would be remiss if it didn't cover his GM years, especially when he was general manager of Pontiac. The entire Pontiac line was reinvigorated (only in part because of the introduction of the GTO as a '64 model) and became the third-best-selling marque in the US for much of the 1960s. (My family owned five new '60s Pontiacs when I was a kid, usually two at a time.)
The story of those years, and what followed (and led him to quit GM in 1973), is told in a really interesting book, On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, by J. Patrick Wright. Lots of insight into what finally killed GM management-wise, even though the book is several decades old.
(Also - the Tucker comparison isn't really apt because much of the Tucker's engineering had no precursor at all, whereas the DeLorean car was very much like the fiberglass-bodied Bricklin Safety Vehicle of 1974 in design and intent. Bricklin's most lasting accomplishment - he's still active - was to start up Subaru of America in the late 1960s.)
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6-09-2009 @ 1:41PM
Rex Roberts said...
Someone should tell David Permut and Steven Lee Jones that Mayer Morganroth was NOT DeLoreans long time attorney. He was a sheister that want after DeLorean for bogus legal bill. (Read Running Naked..available on Amazon.)
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6-09-2009 @ 1:51PM
Derek said...
I have read that a movie is being made from the book Running Naked. i read the book and it seems to be the real deal on DeLorean.
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6-09-2009 @ 1:54PM
Nikki said...
Interesting story. I never knew the whole story behind the Delorean or why they don't make them anymore, which is why I think this would make a great movie! I am a big Back to the Future fan and I got exited when I actually saw someone driving a Delorean on the freeway a few years ago which was very rare.
-Nikki-
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6-09-2009 @ 3:18PM
Quentin said...
*Sigh of relief*
Don't scare me like that. I thought for sure this article was about Brett Ratner trying to remake Back To The Future. That would be the scariest thing ever!
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6-09-2009 @ 6:23PM
TheCritic28 said...
Great scott*, you almost gave me a heart attack! Anyways, that story sounds heavy*.
*You know I couldn't help it.
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6-09-2009 @ 7:01PM
jake said...
Erik -- your headline for this blog made me LAUGH OUT LOUD! Hilarious!
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