Lee Marvin Tagged Articles at Cinematical

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.

"Fire the fight choreographer, for crissakes! Lee Marvin looks like he's standing in for Bette Davis."

Everyone, meet Cath! Granted, her submission is less of a caption than it is a catty comment, but the judges ruled it admissible anyway, and she's officially this week's winner.  Thanks to all the entrants, an encouraging percentage of which have their classic films down cold and recognized immediately that the still came from Point Blank.

Cath, when you get done thanking the Academy and all of the little people, please send your info to James (dot) Rocchi (at) cinematical (dot) com, so we can get that Cinematical t-shirt in the mail.

According to Variety, Joel Silver and Lynn Harris (who happens to be an executive vice president at Warner Brothers) were sitting around chatting one day about the kind of movie they'd like to remake. Because, you know, there really aren't enough remakes being made these days. "Gee, Lynn," said Silver, "I'd love to do a new version of The Dirty Dozen!" "Holy crap, Joel!", replied Harris. "I think we own the rights to the original - let's turn that mother out!" Or something like that.

So, basically, we have the friendship of Silver and Harris to blame for this one. Silver will be producing the film, which is going to be SO EPIC that it needs three writers: André Nemec and Josh Appelbaum, who both worked on Alias, and Scott Rosenberg will huddle together, trying to write a movie that's already been written. Co-producer Susan Downey claims that their version will be modernized, and "a high-testosterone, fun, big movie." Oh boy - fun and big? Why, I can hardly wait!