TheMechanic Tagged Articles at Cinematical

Has this thought ever crossed your mind: 'Boy, The Godfather was awesome. But it needs to be remade as a gangster saga in the hip hop world.' Or: 'The Shawshank Redemption was great, but I want a prequel, with Zac Efron as the Tim Robbins dude in college!' Or: 'Citizen Kane had too much talking -- and no color! I thought my TV was broken. I hope they reboot it with Will Smith as a rich guy who creates a new social networking site, marries a supermodel, and flies to the Moon!'

Has there ever been remake / reboot news that you've warmly greeted? We've groaned about / bitched about a ton of remakes in various stages of development. Just within the last month, we've written about Short Circuit, Alien, Total Recall, The Karate Kid, Scream, Barbarella, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Flight of the Navigator, Footloose, Mona Lisa, The Mechanic, 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Also looming out there: Predator, Commando, Nightmare on Elm Street, The Warriors, Tell No One, and District B13, among many others. Next week, The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 hits theaters, and later this year Fame, Night of the Demons, A Christmas Carol, The Wolfman, and Brothers will endeavor to obliterate all memory of their original inspirations.

As Elvis Costello once sang, "I used to be disgusted and now I try to be amused." Of all these, I'm least looking forward to Total Recall, but most of these numb me with disinterest. How about you? Can you pick out one that is your absolute, most fury-inducing, 'how dare they' remake / reboot?

With Death Wish being remade by Sylvester Stallone, it was clear that the entire Charles Bronson back catalog is up for grabs ... and the next up is 1973's The Mechanic. Last year, it was also reportedly being redone by Stallone, but it's now in new hands. Unfortunately, they're the hands of Simon West, who has nabbed his second remake job according to Variety. So now you know it'll look more like Con Air and Tomb Raider, and less grim and gritty, though it is being produced and updated by the original Mechanic men, Irwin Winkler and Robert Chartoff.

The upside (to me, anyway) is that it will star the deliciously surly Jason Statham in the lead role -- and frankly, if you are going to remake a Bronson movie, Statham is your man. I think he's the closest we have to the manly men of 70s B-Movies and that we'll all live to see Crank remade by whoever succeeds him.

If you're unfamiliar with the plot, it goes a little something like this: an aging hitman named Arthur Bishop is assigned to kill Big Harry, one of the head men of his organization. At Harry's funeral, Bishop meets his son, Steve and takes him under his assassin wing. Bishop's shadowy organization doesn't like this though, and things get predictably bloody. The film is actually on Netflix Instant Watch, so check it out this weekend as a gritty come down from Star Trek ... that's what I'm going to do!

We might not know exactly what Sylvester Stallone is doing next, but we do know he's apparently got a thing for remaking old Charles Bronson films. Not long ago, Stallone expressed interest in remaking Death Wish, and now Dark Horizons tells us the aging action star will star in a remake of the 1972 Bronson flick, The Mechanic (and though they say nothing of the man also directing, other sites are jumping to that conclusion). DH also claims the film's budget clocks in at around $40 million, and that MGM is looking at folks like Ryan Gosling, Ben Foster, Cillian Murphy and Elijah Wood to co-star.

The original film revolved around an aging hitman (played by Bronson, and now Stallone) who befriends a young man that wants to become a professional killer. Over at IMDb, however, they claim the film will be totally re-imagined as a thriller in a post 9/11 world. A few days ago, Stallone struck a deal to star and produce two new action films, though there was no further info on what those two films would be. Perhaps Sly is off the Death Wish train and now setting his sights on The Mechanic? Could one of these (or both) eventually become the film(s) included in that deal? Which would you rather see Sly remake: Death Wish or The Mechanic?