For your consideration: the biggest, baddest, most expensive Spike Lee joint ever

[Rowdy Roddy McDowall]

.

 

[Admiral2]

How expensive? I'm thinking $500-600 million, considering the cast I cast below. And it probably wouldn't gross over $700 mil anyhow, but THE WIZARD OF OZ flopped in '39 and they still run it on TV every year, so go figure. Spike Lee has made two major war movies already: MIRACLE AT ST. ANNA and DA FIVE BLOODS. If he hands over writing duties to John Ridley, or simply copies the original 1967 classic's dialogue verbatim Gus Van Sant-style, I think he would be the optimum director to tackle the inevitable remake of THE DIRTY DOZEN, starring the following 24 icons:

MORGAN FREEMAN as Colonel Reisman
JAMES EARL JONES as General Worden
DENZEL WASHINGTON as Joseph Wladislaw
WILL SMITH as Robert Jefferson
SAMUEL L. JACKSON as Victor Franko
ANDRE BRAUGHER as Sgt. Bowren
FOREST WHITAKER as Major Armbruster
ICE-T as Pedro Jiminez (end-credits theme song required?)
DWAYNE JOHNSON as Capt. Kinder
VING RHAMES as Colonel Dasher-Breed
IDRIS ELBA as Archer Maggott (!?!?!)
VIN DIESEL as Pedro Jiminez
DANNY GLOVER as General Denton
CHRIS ROCK as Vernon Pinckley
WESLEY SNIPES as Milo Vladek
CHIWETEL EJIOFOR as Glenn Gilpin
LAURENCE FISHBURNE as Seth Sawyer
DON CHEADLE as Roscoe Lever
JALEEL WHITE as Tassos Bravos
JAMIE FOXX as Pvt. Gardner
TONY TODD as Bathroom MP One
EDDIE MURPHY as Bathroom MP Two
SPIKE LEE as Cpl. Morgan (one line cameo)
HALLE BERRY as German Officer's Girl....shall we call her Robistosqueeze? Won't work without one lady.)

'Kay, number one: Why would you want to remake an iconic war movie like The Dirty Dozen? Number two: Why should I care that the remake has an all black cast? Note: I don't watch movies or TV shows giving a tinker's damn whether I "see myself" in them, so your answer had better be more compelling than "Aren't you black? Wouldn't you want to see a movie that's already fantastic but recast with persons of color?" If it's not, I'll pass, thanks.

I've already seen the original movie. It's aready fantastic. I see no added value in making the exact same movie with a race-swapped cast, and I submit anyone who does see that added value cares more about race than they care about being entertained. I, for one, like being entertained. I don't particularly care about the skin color of the people doing the entertaining.

To illustrate my point, I offer two movies: The Bishop's Wife (1947) and The Preacher's Wife (1996). Both are very good romantic comedies, both casts are headlined by great actors (Cary Grant and Denzel Washington respectively). Preacher's Wife is a remake of Bishop's Wife, so while there are script changes between them to modernize the story for the nineties, the basic plot is exactly the same. So, I challenge you to watch both movies in release order and answer this question honestly: Did the fact alone that it's cast were People of Color make Preacher's Wife better than Bishop's wife?

Spike Lee is a great director, but he's best when he creates his own stories. Your way, you're saddling him with a script from the seventies and a cast whose leads are pushing between seventy and a hundred years old, just to redo a movie that was already done right the first time. That would be a massive waste of time, money and talent. You said yourself that Lee has already made two, good original war movies. Let him do a third one his own way,

 

[Admiral2]

I figure some fool will attempt it one day and fall flat on his face.

So let him. It'll teach him to mess with a classic if the remake bombs hard.

Some have considered buying the rights at times. (Wasn't George Clooney considered at one point?) I decided to choose most of the top-lining black male actors except for Keith David and Jaye Davidson as a kitchen-sink exercise.....not to pander to optics as some movies do, but rather to select a classic property worthy of such a star-studded treatment while throwing in an ironic cameo or two.

Yeah, but...with that cast and no other reason to remake the film, pandering to optics is exactly what it looks like you're doing.

I gather you're likely familiar with most of the original supporting players of DOZEN. Once I reached two dozen mostly men I then added Lee as a potential director, and Halle Berry even later after remembering Robistu's squeeze.

Again, why?

Spike Lee is often fighting for decently-large budgets for his films and this one would absolutely be massive.

So, remake Dozen with Spike Lee directing so that Lee can have a big budget? I don't have the words to truly articulate how dumb that idea is.

I do not categorically state a line-for-line remake is the only way to go, but the results would still be more rewarding than the inflated-prices of 1998's PSYCHO, even if Lee were reckless or proud or crazy enough to attempt this.

A lazy remake doing better than another lazy remake doesn't mean the more successful lazy remake would actually be good.

He also wouldn't necessarily want all of these proposed actors, but this to me is the best possible version of an inevitable remake, with no Justin Bieber or Ashton Kutcher or 21st century rappers allowed to screw it up. Perhaps the presence of Vin Diesel brings a bit of diversity. But I would certainly see this sucker at least once on opening day.

First, this couldn't possibly be the best possible remake of Dozen because the motivations behind it are "Spike Lee gets a huge budget" and "the cast is mostly high profile black people" not "the moviegoing public is clamboring to see a remake of this film." Second, no remake is inevitable. Somebody in some movie studio somewhere has to greenlight it first, for whatever reason, and I'm pretty sure the call for new material based on a sixties WW2 movie has dried up at this point, which means third, it doesn't matter what tokens you cast.

You want to burn your hard-earned money watching something like this? It's your money.

Does anyone know Spike Lee's reasons for directing the OLDBOY remake? I've seen neither version, so I have no idea.

Spike Lee is happy to take money for directing mainstream projects. Inside Man is another one.

The same goes for THE PREACHER'S WIFEs. Being a huge HONEYMOONERS fan, I will only take versions with Art Carney.

I agree.

I have always enjoyed the hell out of THE DIRTY DOZEN, my hands-down favorite flick of 1967, and only watched the lackluster TV-movie follow-ups once.

Then again, why the hell do you want a remake?

A quality mostly-male cast with no stacked WW2 blondes pretending to have superior upper-body strength would be potentially entertaining, if done right. And very likely Lee wouldn't want to....or make a third war film either, small cast or large. But this is my fantasy, and I'm standing by it. It cannot top the original, but someone with chutzpah just might try one day to outgross the future JAWS all-females-on-boat JAWS remake.

I've wasted too much time and energy putting faith in the phrase "if done right." You can imagine whatever remake you like. It's still a pass for me.

 

[Admiral2]

Shifting gears, do you think there are current film directors capable of remaking or reimagining it without cheapening it? Or potentially good if younger actors for Reisman and the dozen?

I'm fine without a remake. But it happens, it's worthless if they don't think big. It has to attempt epic status, perhaps in a unique or different way. I appreciate the original for being 150 solid minutes of sustained action and humor even though half the team could not be meaningfully spotlighted. I feel any proper remake might try to give each member one memorable moment, the way ALIENS almost did if not for the two actor ''stuntmen''. So perhaps James Cameron might cut back on the unobtanium and consider re-doing TDD.

The original's one flaw is Posey being declared dead without our seeing it. Either he didn't want to film it, or they cut for time, which is absurd considering it's Clint Walker.

I was earlier mix-matching the roles I thought were spot-on for some of the leads. Chris Rock and Vin Diesel were ''cast'' first. Despite their often advanced ages, do you feel some of the 24 I listed could make their stamps on the key roles? (The GLORY reunion of Freeman, Washington and Braugher was strictly coincidental on my part. They would be the only three out of the 14 to survive the mission.)

Let me make this clear: I don't want a Dirty Dozen remake, period, so any directors or actors we might come up with to make one a hit are irrelevant. I don't care about the potential quality of a movie I don't want to exist at all.

That said, if it happens, it happens. You have no say in the matter one way or another, so I don't understand you obsessing over details concerning a movie that there's no evidence anywhere that somebody wants to make.

You're just "imagining" what would be good if it "might" happen? Some perspective: I'm confident in my assertion that anything I have ever wanted to see remade has been remade, to varying degrees of quality from best (Syfy Galactica) to shite (any Star Trek made after 2009). I've always imagined what such remakes would look like and how best to craft them, and, shockingly, none of the remakes had any relation to anything I thought up in my head.

Look, at least wait until there is actually an announcment that someone's making this beofre you set yourself up so hard the inevitable disappointment.

 

[Gaith]

I'm a big WW2 movie fan, and moderate WW2 history buff, and I find The Dirty Dozen silly, laughably ahistorical, and juvenile - and it seems Lee Marvin concurred. A charitable perspective might say that it's more of a grungy, 1970s-era reflection of the Vietnam war than a straightforward WW2 piece, but even then I'd much rather watch a thoroughly 1970s flick like Dirty Harry if that's what I was looking for. The story is lame right down to its nonsensical, edgelord premise, so count me as another uninterested in a remake.

 

[publiusr]

I could see Terry Crews as Posey…