Having seemingly given up directing original works when his 2008 crime film Rock 'n' Rolla continued a confused run of flops,
Guy Ritchie has in the past few years moved on to the idea of remakes & adaptations. Better to direct someone elses work than come up with his own ideas, etc, and it's clearly working for him. His Sherlock Holmes movie is the best thing he's made in ten years and of course he has a sequel to it coming this Christmas and for the first time in a while, he is making movies people care to see. To further his new 'non-original' mantra, Ritchie's also been flirting with the idea of remaking The Dirty Dozen, directing a new King Arthur movie and also adapting a few comic book characters such as Sgt. Rock and Lobo and now comes word that he is considering a remake of
The Cannonball Run, a early 80's cult and mindless entertainment classic.
Badass Digest and
Latino Review both confirm that a Cannonball Run remake is being touted around but so far, Ritchie's people are keeping stum. The word is the Brit geezer see's a mustached
George Clooney as the new Burt Reynolds.
The original film followed a mixed bag of outlaws who illegally raced across the U.S. and was based on a real life cross country race that has partly endured in audiences psyche for it's large ensemble and list of famous cameo's such as Roger Moore, Jackie Chan, Dean Martin and Sammy Davis Jr! Clearly with two of the rat pack members having appeared in Cannonball, the idea of a 21st century remake, especially with Clooney, reminds us of the Ocean's Eleven series and I imagine a half serious/half comedy action movie is the only way to go with this. Something in between the Death Race remake and Rat Race, the latter an obvious rip-off of the 80's film. With a varied cast of A-listers, especially giants of comedy, we wouldn't be completely averse to the idea of a Cannonball Run remake, especially if Ritchie can attract the likes of Clooney by some miracle. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I_7_y0HhAmY And Ritchie could probably make it cool, in a diet-Soderbergh kind of way. So no, we won't be crying onto our DVD copy of Cannonball Run over the idea of this remake. How about you?