and also the director of Smokin’ Aces, The A-Team I really liked Smokin' Aces. The A-Team not so much but I like his style. Carnahan is a good director. Oh and how appropriate none of the Death Wish movies have been released on Blu-ray. You can bet that MGM will cash in when the remake is released that they will release the original film on Blu-ray a month before.
Half the thrillers made are, essentially, remakes of Death Wish. I guess this one'll star Liam Neeson, so that'll be into Taken/Unknown territory...
^ That was Death Sentence, which IIRC was based on a book by the same writer. Sly Stallone was going to make a remake of it a few years ago until internet feedback scared him off. Personally, I couldn't really care. The original is not a good movie. Charles Bronson was a great physical screen presence but a good actor he was not and Michael Winner couldn't direct traffic. Carnaghan and his rumoured (and likely) star Liam Neeson can only be an improvement. But this sort of thing has been done so often - Death Sentence, Neil Jordan's The Brave One, Eye for An Eye, the various Punishers, Exterminators, etc, etc. You have to ask 'What's the point?'
It is its own genre. These sorts of stories don't go away for long. And like with the Statham version of The Mechanic, the name recognition of the title will probably help with green lighting and marketing. If it does star Liam Neeson, I hope it takes place in a random and beautiful European city. That was half of the charm of Taken and Unknown.
^But wasn't New York an essential element, almost to the point of being a character, in Death Wish? I take your point about it being its own genre but that just begs the question, why not make it an original movie? Particularly if they set it in a different city.
I don't know that NY is quite the same as it was when that film came out. NYers seem to constantly complain about how the whole city has been sanitized and turned into Disneyland. Imagine Liam Neeson's wife being gang-raped and murdered by the gang from ... the Genius Bar! "I can see them! The Monsters! They're right there! Lurking in the shadows!" "Everyone can see them. The walls are glass." "I'll get them. I'll avenge my beloved!" "You'll have to wait in line. The iPhone 5 comes out today. There are 748 hipsters in line ahead of you. It started fifteen days ago." "Crap." I totally get you. But I think it's just whorish marketing. There were like four Death Wish movies and I'm sure they'd sell quite well on Blue Ray provided they had a theatrically released commercial to hype them.
^ Funny enough, I read another interview with Carnaghan where he specifically referred to Drive as being among his influences for DW.
Before I had even seen this post I already had Eye for An Eye, The Punisher and The Brave One coming to mind. Indeed, what's the point?!
The Grey's Frank Grillo, for whom Carnaghan has written a part in this movie, talks a little about it. It may be a two-hander, rather than a starring vehicle. And Russell Crowe for Kershey, or is that total speculation? http://www.slashfilm.com/frank-grillo-death-wish-carnahan-brothers/
A good movie is a good movie, regardless of how familiar it may be. Was David Russell not going to make 'The Fighter' because there are so many other underdog boxing movies?
Yeah, but that actually is a case *for* a remake - instead of soiling the memory of a classic, do a shabby flick *right* this time
^ True - the Soderbergh and Ocean's 11 approach. But if, as is rumoured, Carnaghan is planning to change the premises, make it a double-hander, then why bother keeping the name - and thus the baggage? Why not just make it a new revenge thriller? The name Death Wish will put off as many as it will attract, I'd suspect.
And once again we're seeing a remake of something that was built around a specific actor or character. No one went to see Death Wish or its sequels for the story or the violence. They went to see Bronson. Full stop. Remaking Death Wish is as senseless as remaking Dirty Harry. You don't go to see a Dirty Harry movie for the story or the characters. You go to see Clint Eastwood and only Clint Eastwood saying things like "Do ya feel lucky, punk?" and describing how his gun is powerful enough to blow someone's head "clean off" and of course "Go ahead, make my day." The Die Hard movies are the Bruce Willis Show - even considering that they're based on a character created for a novel. When Willis stops making them, it will make no sense for them to be remade. Had Stallone actually gone and made Death Wish that might have worked because it would have been built around Stallone's personality. The fact the guy thinking of doing this is the guy behind the clueless remake of The A Team tells you something. The A Team was built around Mr. T, Dwight Schultz and George Peppard (no offence to Dirk Benedict fans, but Face was disposable enough they actually cast someone else initially you'll recall). The story was secondary and a comic book (hence the lack of killing). The A Team remake had no standout personalities, and made the mistake of going for realism (killing people, etc). And it didn't work. Sometimes I think people who come up with remake ideas should be forced to write a 100-page essay on what made the original series or movie popular before they're handed the keys, because for every "Get Smart" remake that actually gets things right, there's an "I Spy" or "Wild Wild West" or "A Team" that drops the ball completely. Hence my lack of faith in Death Wish 2.0 being any good. Alex