Vacation: 10 Ill-Advised Comedy Movie Comebacks
Enter a World of Walleys...
Get a comedy right on the big screen and you're headed for Big Money City on a diamond-encrusted chariot pulled by golden geese. You'll be the guy/girl who made the world blow hideously-priced popcorn and soda out their nose. And more importantly you can make several movies under the same banner and never be troubled by originality again.
Vacation was such a franchise, lasting so long it actually spanned the centuries between 1983 and 2003. Fuelled by the catchy theme song of Holiday Road by Lindsey Buckingham, the first instalment featured Clark and Ellen Griswold (Chevy Chase and Beverly D'Angelo), just your average, confused, horny American couple looking to give their family the break of a lifetime at a Disney-inspired theme park. National Lampoon provided the source of the original series and now Warner Bros fancies another roll of the dice with a modern take on the concept. Ed Helms and Christina Applegate play Rusty (Clark's supposedly grown up son) and his better half Debbie, who attempt to get their little angels to the legendary Walley World, a destination Chase was comedically determined to reach way back when.
Does the world need a continuation of this over-egged saga? Definitely not, though it won't stop the studio trying. The process of getting an audience to laugh can be the grimmest of businesses as you're about to discover here. Vacation 2015 is only the latest in a string of movie resurrections that seek to renovate some beloved, chuckle-inducing properties...
10. Kindergarten Cop 2
Nowadays the word "belated" means very little in the entertainment industry. Movies and shows are brought back with mind-boggling regularity. Every so often however a project is announced and the world sits up and goes "Whaaa?" We all knew Arnold Schwarzenegger was excavating his old characters, via Terminator: Genisys and the upcoming Conan The Barbarian: The Hip Replacement Years. But a Kindergarten Cop sequel? And without the Austrian Oak? That was a surprise.
Scary-looking Dolph Lundgren steps into the big fella's shoes. Strangely Lundgren is the actor who probably would have gotten the part in 1991, had Schwarzenegger and a couple of other people turned the movie down. This is certainly a rare foray into comedy to say the least.
A quarter of a century will have elapsed by the time the film is released, so producing this second chapter with a new lead character is a proper puzzle. I guess putting a number two in there (no sniggering please) may trick more people into renting the title. Judgment Day can be reserved for when KC2 is finished, though talk of an Indian sidekick suggests it could be a throwback in more ways than one.