Howdy do, everyone, it's Papa Vinyard here.
The Hollywood Reporter has, um, reported that Universal has begun development on a remake of the 1994 Jean-Claude Van Damme sci-fi flick TIMECOP. They don't have a script yet, but chances are the scribes won't have the comic-book pedigree of original scribes Mike Richardson (who happened to be the founder of Dark Horse, which published the original TIMECOP comic) and Mark Verheiden. It's being produced by Tom McNulty, responsible for such similar geek fare as Date Night, Deuce Bigalow: European Gigolo, and Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star. Another (maybe premature) red flag? There seems to be absolutely no desire to get JCVD involved.
While TIMECOP (directed by the multitalented Peter Hyams) remains the Muscles from Brussles' highest grossing solo feature, I always thought it was a great concept marred by bad execution. There seemed to be a lot of this going around in the early-to-mid '90s; killer production design and ambitious plotting, neutered by a fucking lawyer, politician, or similarly generic suit villain (not to knock Ron Silver…love him telling his younger self to "lay off the fucking candy bars").
The first scene takes place in the Civil War. Another prologue is set during Prohibition-era Chicago. Then the rest of the film takes place in…1994. Good job Universal accountants, but tough shit for us sci-fi fans. My hope for this remake is that they actually take full advantage of the premise, and make it about something really cool and provocative instead of placing it firmly in the one time period that everyone knows everything about. The possibilities are, quite literally, limitless.
Also, I hope there are splits.
I bet I'm the only person that thinks Peter Hyams son, John, is currently doing an even better job using JCVD with his contemporary Universal Soldier sequels than his old man ever did. Maybe Outlaw Vern has my back on that.
-Vincent Zahedi
”Papa Vinyard”
vincentzahedi@gmail.com
Follow Me On Twitter
