I recently attended a press junket for Sylvester Stallone's amazingly violent new Rambo (in theaters January 25th). There, he was asked about his plans to remake the 1974 Charles Bronson classic Death Wish. Peter told you a bit about the new Death Wish in November, when Variety announced that Stallone would direct and star. The film will be scripted by Michael Ferris and John D. Brancato (The Net, The Game, T3: Rise of the Machines). Stallone says he thinks Death Wish, done today "would be volcanic." And despite the lack of success for recent revenge thrillers like Death Sentence and The Brave One, I think he might be right. Below is what Stallone had to say about his take on the material:

The idea in the original of Jeff Goldblum as a mugger who breaks into an apartment seems very simplistic. It gives you an idea of how bad the elevation of violence has become. I want to focus on defense attorneys, on the people who are really allowing this crap to happen. Not so much the guy out in the street, but who permits it? What if it happened to you? What if your daughter down the hall was grabbed and her eyes were put out, would you want to defend that guy? There's moral questions here that are being presented that have not been asked in 30 years. So it's not the pacifist. This fella I see, and I'm giving you a little hint here, he was a very violent human being. An ex-convict who walked the walk, was accepted back into society, did everything he could to be clean. When the incident happens, he reverts back, and it's like "My God." Now you've unleashed a man who really understands the world of violence. He isn't burdened with this passive-aggressive conscientious objector thing that's been done. It's really what happens when the wolf in sheep's clothing goes back to the wolf.

What do you think? Does Stallone's Death Wish sound like something you Wish you could see?

As if he didn't have too many comic book adaptations to write, Zak Penn (X-Men: The Last Stand) has been named as the new screenwriter of Joel Silver's remake of The Dirty Dozen, which we unfortunately heard about early last year. Originally it was reported that the movie was being scripted by three high-profile writers, André Nemec, Josh Appelbaum and Scott Rosenberg, but apparently their work isn't good enough and a rewrite is now necessary. Of course, one has to wonder why Silver needs to go through so many writers when there's already a perfectly good screenplay by Nunnally Johnson and Lukas Heller. It isn't like too much needs to be updated; the movie is set in World War II. I'm not familiar with E.M. Nathanson's original novel, though, and I guess the first movie may have omitted some things that the new adaptation could include. Anyway, I guess it just isn't common practice to reuse an old script when remaking an old movie.

For those who haven't seen The Dirty Dozen, it's about a group of military criminals sent on a suicide mission to assassinate Nazi officers. It features an iconic ensemble of actors, most of whom were reunited to voice characters in Small Soldiers as a sort of homage. To the faithful, it will be very, very difficult to see a new version without Lee Marvin, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, Ernest Borgnine, Telly Savalas, Donald Sutherland, George Kennedy and the rest. I don't know what the time frame is for the production of the remake, but we may get to see it as early as next year. And if Silver can get the project going soon, maybe it can even go head to head with Penn's buddy Bryan Singer's Hitler assassination movie, Valkyrie. They might even make a good double feature -- or you can rent the original Dirty Dozen and then go see Valkyrie and more possibly experience a great double feature.

Earlier this month, there was a Reuters story about director Michael Winner and his claim that his 1974 film Death Wish is the most copied in the history of cinema. I haven't gotten to the point where I agree with that statement completely, but today I'm seeing one more piece of evidence, at least. Fox Searchlight has just made a deal to distribute a movie called Stephon's Coroner for State Street (I don't understand the title, either), which is kinda like Death Wish, but with and for moms. The script, written by Pat Gilfillan follows two single women who become friends after they each lose a son to useless acts of violence. When the judicial system fails them, they become vigilantes. George Tillman will direct.

There is no vengeance like that of a mother. So who should play these renegade moms? The best choice for one of them would be Julianne Moore, but I guess I'm typecasting since she seems to be playing a lot of mom's with missing children these days. For the other, perhaps Sissy Spacek? Or would that be too much red hair? Maybe it could serve as some cheesy metaphor?