I’m a pretty big fan of the latest version of Brewster’s Millions, starring Richard Pryor and John Candy (I still get a kick out of Pryor using the priceless stamp to send mail!), but I’m well aware of the property’s long history (a novel in 1902, a play not long after and five other movie versions with the same name, as well as some without), so the idea of remaking it doesn’t strike me as blasphemy. It strikes me as Hollywood taking another swing at a standard.
The story is simple: A guy gets left a million dollars by his grandfather. His hateful uncle then proceeds to die and leave him 7 million dollars. The catch: the guy has to spend the grandfather’s entire million in one year and have nothing to show for it (in the Walter Hill directed Pryor version it was 30 million in 30 days). There are lots of rules about how he can spend the dough, and he has to keep the whole thing a secret, so his best friends try to stop him from throwing his grandfather’s money away. Comedy ensues.
The big question mark is what sort of tone Warner Bros is going for with this latest version. They’ve hired two unknowns – Matthew Sullivan and Michael Diliberti (once Scott Rudin’s assistant. You can go places from those kinds of jobs) – so who knows if this will retain the sweetness that made the other versions so wonderful, or if it’ll be the usual modern coarse comedy (Brewster buys a girl breast implants that self-destruct!). I’m sure they’ll update the money – Brewster’s Billions! And he has three hours to spend it! And the movie is real time!