Hollywood, Just Full of Ideas, to Remake Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

Oh it's different, though: It's race-swapped, now with Will Smith and Kevin Hart.

I bet you any amount of money that the previous plan was to gender-swap it with Sandra Bullock, say, and Melissa McCarthy.

But now that the Gender Swap Woke Remake is a proven loser, they're on to Woke Plan B.

Let me say this to Hollywood: Every time I think you couldn't be more creatively-bankrupt, slavishly imitative IP hijakers, you do something like this, and totally redeem yourselves!

I assume that Will Smith will be taking the Steve Martin role.

He's all wrong for it. I wouldn't have thought Steve Martin could pull that role off -- a dickish, smug, wealthy elitist who plays the straight man in most of the movie -- but he did.

So Steve Martin did manage that, unexpectedly.

Anyone want to bet that Will Smith also nails the role?

Does anyone think he won't do the typical Will Smith glib charm and swagger stuff?

Which is bad for the movie, because the "Neil" character is not supposed to be likable. And he's not supposed to be cool and chill -- having a stick up his ass is an important character trait that drives the plot.

His character arc is to go from being an incivil tight-ass to a nice guy.

I don't have anything against this movie. I'm not against remakes on principle. I'm not precious about art and I think very few things are so holy that they shouldn't be remade.

If someone wants to try to make some money, have at it.

But... this is a really bad movie to try to remake. It was lightning in a bottle.

This will bomb. #Woke remakes are dead. No, just because you race-swap doesn't necessarily make the remake "woke," but, apart from superhero movies, this is all Hollywood does anymore, remaking a movie from the 80s or 90s with a gender or race swapped cast.

People have seen a lot of these swapped remakes and they're almost all terrible. Even if this one is good, people will be disinclined to see it.

They've learned almost all of these movies are Hot Stinky Sweating Corporate Garbage.

I don't know if this will lose money. Kevin Hart makes money on almost all of his movies, and Will Smith, while a faded star, still has some draw.

But: I think an original movie would make more money with these two. If you pit these two in any other project -- one even without any pre-existing IP value, like something you, I don't know, just made up -- the film would make more money.

I think the fact that this is yet another braindead gender-and-race-swapped cash-grab remake will hurt the project at the box office.

No, not Dark Fate levels of lost money... but people want our alleged "Creative Class" to try being creative for once in their miserable, useless lives.

posted by Ace at 04:55 PM

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