Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Like many of you reading this, Splash was a huge deal for my childhood. Tom Hanks and John Candy brought the goofy, Eugene Levy was a surprisingly effective villain for a young mind and Daryl Hannah... well, she made me think there might be something to this girl phenomenon the adults seemed to be embroiled in.
It's no surprise that Splash is getting remade, but what is surprising is they're doing it with a twist. Much like the recent Ghostbusters they're going to gender-swap the leads. 22 Jump Street's Jillian Bell will take the Tom Hanks role and Channing Tatum will be the merman she falls in love with.
Ron Howard and Brian Grazer will produce alongside Tatum.
The role reversal sounds really fun to me, especially with those two in the leads. People forget that back when Splash was made Tom Hanks was the comedy guy. He was the guy from TV's Bosom Buddies. Splash is indeed a comedy, but one that felt very real to me. From Hannah's realistic flipper to the big city New York setting, the world didn't feel all that exaggerated. It is, however, a world of its time. I don't know if you can get much more 1980s than that movie, so an update that changes some things around doesn't concern me much. I definitely am not worried about my childhood's purity.
I imagine they'll be looking at either Jonah Hill or Josh Gad for the John Candy role. What do you folks think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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