On the list of shit I’m not going to get worked up over, the impending remake of Adventures in Babybsitting ranks just below pro wrestling’s human growth hormone scandal and the fact that the State of Idaho’s Attorney General’s office calls my land line every morning at 7:30 looking for some guy named Luther. Do I like Adventures in Babysitting? Sure. It’s a cute piece of escapist entertainment featuring a super-cute Elisabeth Shue performance and a great cameo from a muscular Vincent D’Onofrio, who, that same summer, was playing the chunky, psychotic Private Pyle in Stanley Kubrick’s Full Metal Jacket. There’s nothing remotely worth hating in that movie.
Will we say the same about Disney’s planned remake, currently titled Further Adventures in Babysitting, twenty years from now? Fuck if I know or care. Erstwhile Cosby kid Raven Symone is set to take over the Shue role, while Hannah Montana star (and Billy Ray spawn) Miley Cyrus will do unspecified shit. Most interestingly, the screenplay is in the hands of Tiffany Paulsen, who wrote Andrew Fleming’s forthcoming Nancy Drew and, in her past career as an actress, got dispatched by Jason Vorhees in Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Vancouver. I don’t know if this makes her a good writer, but I do know I’d be more impressed with Paul Schrader if he’d been an extra in Quo Vadis.
Lynda Obst will produce this newfangled Babysitting romp, which is probably a good three or four months away from commencing principal photography, although I have heard of Hollywood movies going into production from time to time without a finished or serviceable screenplay.