Here’s a hint for potential remake strip-miners. If you
want to tackle the work of a revered director, don’t start with one of their
most personal movies. Remake Bringing Out The Dead, not The
Age Of Innocence. Dive into Dressed To Kill, not Blow
Out. Wrap your new shit around Nemesis, not Dangerously Close.
And if you’re going to tackle Cronenberg, pick Shivers
or Rabid
or Fast goddamn Company, but not The Brood. Created at a time when
the maestro was going through a bitter custody battle with his ex-wife, it’s
not too hard to see where the story of a mother manifesting her rage as a swarm
of murderous monster children came from. And since it’s cold in Toronto, the reason
for their colored winter parkas is equally obvious; what happens when they
shoot the remake in Vancouver? Rain slickers just aren’t as intimidating.
Entertainment has picked up rights to The Brood anyway. Goodman is the guy
who pitched them the remake; he’s also the guy with a flick called Priest
set up at Screen Gems, the house that dreck built, and Kung Fu over at Warner’s.
With no other details to go on I can do naught but speculate wildly (and, in
all probability, negatively) about Goodman’s intent for the film but all I
really want to know is who he’s got in mind to replace the wildly and obviously
drunk Oliver Reed as the film’s significant authority on rage. If Goodman had
just got his shit together a few years ago, this could have been a career resuscitation
for Dudley Moore. A life might have been saved there.
And lest anyone forget, the Scanners remake is still set up at Dimension. Variety lists Saw sequel-er Darren Lynn Bousman as attached to direct, while IMDBPro tags David Goyer. Take your pick, haters of intact heads.