The Unnecessary Remake: Peter Pan Begins & The Fighter 2

The year of the remake continues to leave its mark on Hollywood releases as two “new” films have caused enough discussion by filmmakers to at least warrant themselves newsworthy.  Remake is not necessarily the appropriate word for either of these films as one is a prequel and the other a sequel, but the concept still remains the same – the rehashing of an older concept.

Peter Pan Begins:

The first of these films, the prequel is the more gut wrenching of the two.  Heat Vision is reporting that screenwriter Billy Ray (State of Play) and producer Joe Roth (Alice in Wonderland) are gearing up to create an origins story for Peter Pan.  Other than the title being Peter Pan Begins, taking a cue from Nolan’s Batman franchise, little else is known about the project.  Peter Pan Begins will join a long list of classic literary tales to make their way to live action film, ones that include:

• Alice in Wonderland (2010)
• Oz, the Great and Powerful
• Snow White and the Huntsman
• Jack the Giant Killer
• Red Riding Hood
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The first three of the aforementioned films are all Joe Roth produced, making him the leading culprit in this new scheme to ruin childhood stories.  If that wasn’t bad enough, Peter Pan Begins is really twisting the knife by already boasting a lead for the film – Channing Tatum.  Obviously, with this being an origin story, Tatum will not be playing the lead; however, this only leads me to assume he will be playing the infamous Captain Hook instead.  While the concept and the casting of Channing Tatum provide me with no interest in this film, screenwriter Billy Ray has a library of successful screenplays and will hopefully provide this atrocity with some sort of value.  It wouldn’t be the first ridiculous Peter Pan idea that worked…

what if Peter Pan grew up to be Robin Williams

The Fighter 2:

Riding the success The Fighter had both critically and in the box office, Mark Wahlberg is already gearing up to play Micky Ward again in a sequel.  When interviewed at the Academy Awards on Sunday, Wahlberg had this to say about the project:

“Now we’re gonna talk about doing No. 2.  We’re gonna do the Ward /Gatti trilogy and make it real.”

As a boxing fan I can attest to the fact that the Ward/Gatti fights were among boxing’s best but I’m not sure recreating these fights as a sequel to The Fighter is appropriate.  For starters, the original film took place in the mid 90s years prior to 2002 when the first fight between Ward and Gatti.  This doesn’t pose as much of a problem as the first film took place during an accelerated timeline (the film starts prior to 1995 and the final fight against Neary actually took place in August, 2000). 

 

The bigger problem arises with the point of view of the film.  The Gatti fights were the final 3 fights of Micky Ward’s career and were the culmination of his career (and ultimately his story); to have Micky Ward as the protagonist of a film focusing on these fights would be disappointing and anticlimactic.  However, if Mark Wahlberg were willing to take a supporting role as Micky Ward in telling the Arturo Gatti story, the film could prove a lot more success.  Though the fights were the highpoint of Gatti’s career, he fought until 2007 – most notably in a gruesome defeat to Floyd Mayweather Jr.  Not to mention Gatti’s story, and more importantly his life, came to a tragic and mysterious end in 2009 when he was found dead in Brazilian hotel.

 

Ideally, Wahlberg should be satisfied with the success of The Fighter and let it rest without being tarnished by a sequel.  However if he has to scratch the itch, it would be in everyone’s best interest if it were to be the Arturo Gatti story and not the continuation of the Micky Ward story.  I’m sure this would make Christian Bale very happy.

 

Not this again

Hunchback of Notre Dame

Tim Burton is back to put his eccentrically dark spin on another piece of beloved literature!!! The Playlist is reporting that he is cheating on his standby lead actor, Johnny Depp, and that Josh Brolin will star in the upcoming adaptation of Victor Hugo‘s The Hunchback of Notre Dame. Let’s hope it turns out better than his last attempt to play a disfigured character.

It won't be that difficult.

On top of that, the scribes for the upcoming Sherlock Holmes sequel, Kieran and Michele Mulroney, will write the screenplay for the film.

Tim Burton will no doubt make a visually arresting film, and I am glad to see him departing from Johnny Depp to go with someone else. His last endeavour, last year’s Alice in Wonderland, lacked a gripping story, so I hope that he can fix that here with his next adaptation. I can’t really comment on the choice in writers since Sherlock Holmes: Game of Shadows hasn’t come out yet, but if it is anything like the original, I think that they could be a good fit with Burton at the helm.