Today seems to be a good one for random sequel/remake news. In case you missed it “The Best Man,” a 1999 comedy you forgot about starring Taye Diggs, is now getting a sequel more than a decade after the fact, but that’s not all. Deadline reports that the 1989 dramedy “Steel Magnolias” is now getting a remake — with an all black cast.
Just to refresh your memory, “Steel Magnolias” itself was based on the play, and it gathered up a pretty impressive cast at the time including Sally Field, Shirley MacLaine, Olympia Dukakis, Dolly Parton, Daryl Hannah and Julia Roberts to tell the story of a bunch of friends in small town Louisiana who share laughter and tears together. Yeah, it’s one of those movies, but it did earn Roberts her first Oscar nomination and is a favorite of many, so we’re not surprised another shot at it is being made two decades later. What is strange is why they bothered to remake it at all. Certainly, getting together black actresses to tell the stories from a different perspective about life in Louisiana is a solid idea, so why not just write a new script instead of adapting the old one and revising it to suit your needs? Whatever, we don’t make the decisions over at Lifetime who are driving the movie, they do, and we presume some development person has a good explanation.
The project will be penned by Sally Robinson (“Medicine Man,” “Iron Jawed Angels“) and directed by Kenny Leon, the guy who did that TV version of the seminal play “A Raisin in the Sun” that starred a woefully miscast Sean “Dirty Diddy Money” Combs.” That said, he’s also behind the Martin Luther King play “The Mountaintop” that’s currently on Broadway starring Samuel L. Jackson and Angela Bassett, and it seems to be getting some strong reviews so there is hope for this yet.
While not officially greenlit at the moment, the project is on a fast track and looking for a cast. While we’re pretty cool on the idea now, if they can get some top shelf talent for this (you can bet somebody is gonna give Viola Davis a call), we could quickly become interested.
Steel Magnolias | Herbert Ross | Sally Field | Dolly Parton | Movie Trailer | Review
