david foster Tagged Articles at Cinematical

If the Mayan calender is correct and the world does end in 2012, it'll be ok because we will have gotten all of our '80s remakes by then! Whew. Fresh on the heels of Total Recall getting its writer, the Oscar nominated Taraji P. Henson joining The Karate Kid, and Jonah Hill's 21 Jump Street plans comes an update on the Short Circuit remake.

According to Variety, Dan Milano of Robot Chicken and Greg the Bunny fame has been recruited to pen the remake for Dimension Films, replacing original writers S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock. He plans to give it a"subversive edge" similar to his Adult Swim work. Contrast that bit of positivity to the enthusiasm from Dimension Films and producer David Foster, who have no plans to change the design of Number 5 to reflect the 21st century, its improvements in robotics, or the fact that a really popular PIXAR film looks an awful lot like him. "We think of Wall-E as an extended trailer for our film, because it's the same face," Foster said.

In my opinion, there's the mentality that just sums all this up. It's just not hollow enough to remake a 1986 movie, but you consider the existence of Wall E as a cross between a fan film and viral marketing, instead of respecting PIXAR for having used Short Circuit as a nice little homage to something original. But that's my black heart showing. If you're an optimist, you may find it amusingly meta.

We've known about dueling Marvin Gaye biopics for two years now, but apparently there's a third. Variety reports of a film to be directed by F. Gary Gray (The Italian Job) and scripted by C. Gaby Mitchell (Blood Diamond) simply titled Marvin. It's possible, though, that this is the same film previously reported as D. Stevens' Marvin: The Life Story of Marvin Gaye, which was being written by Greg Guss and Robert Scharrer. The IMDb certainly thinks so.

Regardless of Gray's film's origins, his project still has a competitor in Sexual Healing, which will star Law & Order's Jesse L. Martin as Gaye and will co-star and be produced by James Gandolfini. There will be a difference between the two, at least. Sexual Healing only has access to Gaye's post-Motown music, so it will be focused on the singer's later years. Marvin, on the other hand, has finally secured the rights to Gaye's entire music catalog and will cover the man's life from beginning to end, when he was shot by his father in 1984.

Now here's one we should have seen coming: Sony's Screen Gems division has decided to dust off the chintzy old indie known as Silent Night, Deadly Night and give the thing the ol' remake treatment. Aged horror fans will no doubt remember the swirl of controversy that met the arrival of the original SNDN advertisements back in 1984. (The moral of the story was this: Mommies don't like TV commercials in which someone dressed as Santa Claus hacks people up with garden tools.)

The guys behind the remake will be producer David Foster and writer/director Joe Harris, whose The Tripper is causing all sorts of bubbling geekdom at the various horror sites. The filmmaker recently shared the news with Moviehole.net, and here's what he had to say about this particular remake: It "will not be a remake of the original picture, but a total reimagining using the basic concept as a platform for a new franchise ... The intent is to create a dark and scary film that falls more in line (in terms of tone) with modern releases such as Saw and The Descent." The guys also take a quick swipe at the new Black Christmas remake, and that made me chuckle a little bit.

Oh, and I wonder if Sony will take the same marketing approach as the original flick. Nothing like free controversy to help sell your horror flick...

[Thanks to BD.com for the tip.]