Big Trouble in Little China is fantastic. It’s a great time capsule of its era, and it gave us one of Kurt Russell’s best characters in truck driver Jack Burton. Carpenter just had that Kurt Russell magic, didn’t he?
According to The Wrap, 20th Century Fox is hoping to recapture that magic with Dwayne “He’ll Always Be The Rock To Me” Johnson stepping into Kurt’s shoes. The remake will be scripted by the writers of X-Men: First Class, Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz.
I have so many conflicting opinions about this. On the positive side, The Rock is charming as hell and while he’s not our modern day Kurt Russell (NO ONE will ever be the modern day Kurt Russell except for Kurt Russell), I can see him playing a guy out of his league when it comes to dealing with a centuries old magic war. And to be fair, there’s a lot of room to go with this concept. As long as it’s set in Chinatown and involves sorcery shenanigans, they can make a brand new story and just slap the title on there.
…But, then there are my other opinions. Yes, I have the same knee-jerk reaction of, “Don’t remake this! It’s good as it is!” Too true, but such is the world we live in. What I’m more concerned about is how the film will manage the ever-looming possibility of touchy Tumblr types decrying it as racist. To be fair, can you even make Big Trouble in Little China today without falling victim to some kind of stereotype? The tightrope will be thin indeed, and I doubt this film will be able to walk it. Hell, the original was made in the 80s so it didn’t have a tightrope of sensitivity to walk. It careened through a culture’s stereotypes like Stuntman Mike taking Rose McGowan home for the night.
I won’t lie, I hope this project goes the way of the dodo, but if it does see the light of day I’ll hope we can get something extremely different from the 1986 cult classic. Also, I don’t think they’ll be featuring this landmark cinematic moment: