Pitches for movies often boil down to either a combination of two notable films or simply referencing a notable film but with a new setting. In a more obvious example of the latter, today brings news of a new western that’s a spin on a very old concept. The Uncatchable Cowgirl Bandits of Nottingham, Texas (no word yet on if the coward Robert Ford is involved) is the story of a group of rebellious young women who start fights in bars and beat up men in search of new Southwestern Ranch Ritz Toasted Chips. Once George Hamilton puts an end to their rampage exactly 30 seconds later, they move on to start robbing branches of a particular bank that is putting the town’s livelihood at risk and corrupting local officials. No word on whether they’re going to share their spoils with the poor townspeople, but I’m gonna assume they’ll just bite the Robin Hood concept wholesale and do just that.
This is all courtesy of Intrepid Pictures, a relatively new company that aims to make pics of varying genres all aimed at the 12 to 29 crowd. In fact, their first attempt will be the upcoming Balls of Fury, the sports spoof flick with Christopher Walken prominently featured in a kimono in the ads. I’m not particularly opposed to this on principle because lots of great films are simply an older story re-staged. Plus, I remember growing up with similarly “youth-oriented” spins on familiar stories like Mobsters and Young Guns, and those films were mostly harmless fun.
This one, however, is still just a concept, although one with potential. With a little effort, the film could be a contemporary commentary on capitalism with the bank framed as Wal-Mart and they could expand the scope to really touch on the politics behind that sort of rampant corporate expansion…but there’s probably not not enough room in the script for a young-skewing empowered cowgirls story and that. Ah, well. Intrepid has hired screenwriter Michael Tabb to create a script based on the idea which he developed with the VP of the company. This makes a fairly rounded upcoming slate for the production company as they’re also providing us with Neil Marshall’s (The Descent) next flick, the viral horror opus Doomsday.