Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. You know, I'm okay with this. Do I think a remake of Cannonball Run will be better than the original film? Probably not, but it can be a uniquely modern take on the big, mega-star ensemble zany road movie. Every generation needs one of those.
The '60s had a few, with It's A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World being the crown jewel. The '70s went weird with their big car movies like Vanishing Point, Deathrace 2000 and Cannonball (not Cannonball Run, that's the next decade) starring David Carradine. The '80s had Cannonball Run and then we got a remake of a '60s film called Rat Race in 2001.
There have been car movies since, but the uniquely cross country competition style movie isn't a thing much these days. Now we have Dom Torreto and his family pulling off James Bond shit with cars, but not really racing anybody for a prize.
Warner Bros is trying to change that by bringing back one of the classics, Cannonball Run, per Deadline. They've gotten Dodgeball's Rawson Thurber to direct and Thomas Lennon and Ben Garant to write what will be a modern era ensemble road comedy.
Do we have Burt Reynolds today? Not really, but I can see the studio eyeballing Chris Pratt for the lead. They need someone with that special kind of charisma and comic timing to make this work. Or they go full goofy with it and cast nothing but comedians, but I think a healthy mix of A-list starpower and a few Seth Rogens or Louis CKs or Amy Schumers could give us something interesting.
The Rat Race remake wasn't great, but it is a pretty accurate snapshot of a moment in time in Hollywood history. What would be the accurate snapshot of today? Mostly superhero stars, probably. What do you guys think?
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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