Not content to have his brother hog the spotlight today, Tony Scott has some news he wants to share — and you’re probably not gonna like it.
While Ridley Scott is at least revisiting his own films with “Prometheus” and the forthcoming “Blade Runner” spinoff/sequel/thingy, Tony is just gonna take an unimpeachable Hollywood classic and remake it. So in case you thought Sam Peckinpah‘s “The Wild Bunch” needed some improving, Tony Scott is gonna throw some fucking filters and fast cuts all over it in a proposed remake. Christ. Believe it or not, Warner Bros. has apparently been trying to get a “reboot” (shudder) done for years and at one point had a script from David Ayer that never made it into production. So this time around, Brian Helgeland (“Green Zone,” “Robin Hood“) will take a stab at it. No word yet on how it will update the story but seriously, what a fucking terrible idea. Here’s hoping this stays in development hell. Thankfully, there’s something else Scott wants to do first (and he’s got a few other options as well).
Remember “Hell’s Angels“? First announced last spring as a possible team up between Scott and Mickey Rourke, the film is based on Sonny Barger‘s autobiography “Hell’s Angel: The Life and Times of Sonny Barger and the Hell’s Angels Motorcycle Club” and this at least, has some great potential. Scott Frank rewrote a Stephen Gaghan script into a tale that would take place during the Laughlin riots of 2001 when the Hell’s Angels and The Mongols were battling for turf. The story would center on the friendship between Barger and a young drifter and mechanic, so it seems the previously mooted “Donnie Brasco“-esque tale of a young cop who tries to infiltrate the club and investigate its activities has been tossed. So too has Rourke as the lead and Shia LaBeouf as the co-star. Scott apparently wants Jeff Bridges for the part, but no meetings have been set yet and even if he says yes, his busy schedule means the film won’t be able to shoot until next spring at the earliest. So what else has he got?
Well, there’s the “Top Gun” remake that has been kicking around; the long developing “Potzdamer Platz,” a drama about two soldiers in a New Jersey-based crime family who try to expand internationally that was rumored to shoot this year; as well as the adaptation of John Grisham‘s “The Associate” (that also had LaBeouf linked at one point).
So all this today and no one has any idea what Scott will do next just yet, but he’s threatening to remake “The Wild Bunch.” Let’s hope anything but that one moves forward. [Deadline]
