9 "Upcoming" Movie Remakes Trapped In Development Hell

5. Drop Dead Fred

Talk of a Drop Dead Fred remake has been around since way back in 2009 when Universal had the idea of recasting the delightful and sadly missed Rik Mayall (who played the grotesque imaginary friend of Phoebe Cates) with Russell Brand in a movie scripted by SNL writer Dennis McNicholas.

The original was something of a cult classic, but the story had enough legs for it to work again, even if Mayall would be a huge miss and Brand's own brand of comedy might have been less charming. It would have been in the tone of Beetlejuice, which is good, but it depended on the success of Brand's remake of Arthur, which was less good for him, because that turned out to be a bit of a bust. That seems to have killed that line of thinking entirely.

The project hasn't officially been cancelled yet, but the death of Rik Mayall changed the conversation and it doesn't look like it'll be getting off the ground any time soon.