It seems that if you’re a Hollywood director all you really need to get your next project greenlit is to have a strong opening weekend. Take Joe Carnahan, for example. His last two films — Smokin’ Aces and The A-Team — both exceeded their opening weekend expectations estimates, which seemed to lead him right to his next project. Similarly, The Grey, which opened on Friday (see Alex’s review here) had a $20 million opening weekend, which exceeded expectations, so Caranahn is a well-liked guy in Hollywood right now.
Because of that, the Los Angeles Times reports that Carnahan has been hired by MGM and Paramount to write and direct a remake of Death Wish, the badass 1974 Charles Bronson vigilante movie. It’s one of the films that really took the Dirty Harry ball and ran with it, as Bronson starred as Paul Kersey, a man who goes on a one-man-mission against the New York City crime scene after his wife is murdered and his daughter is sexually assaulted. It’s pretty awesome if you haven’t seen it, except for the unintended oddness of a young Jeff Goldblum playing one of the vicious criminals who attacks Kersey’s family. Bronson went on to make four sequels, and a remake has been kicked around Hollywood for a few years, with Sylvester Stallone attempting one a few years back.
Producing the film would be The Grey producer Jules Daly, along with Ridley and Tony Scott‘s Scott Free Productions. I’m a bit ambivalent about the remake, since I think it has potential but 1970s New York City is as much of a “character” in the original as it is in Taxi Driver, another vigilante classic. 2012 New York just doesn’t have the same grime. But it all matters on who is cast in the lead — though Liam Neeson has done well for himself in action films lately, I don’t quite see him in the Bronson role.
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