But there's a problem. Who would be Arnold?
Think about the action stars of today and try to put any of them in something as high concept as The Running Man. Who's out there? Matt Damon? Ben Affleck? WIll Smith? Daniel Craig? Keanu Reeves? Tom Cruise? Johnny Depp? Christian Bale? Viggo Mortensen? Shaq? Really the well of action stars doesn't much include anyone too butch. Orlando Bloom as The Running Man - shoot me now.
Hugh Jackman? Are you serious? I mean Geez, they had Kelsey Grammer play The Beast.
I suppose you could go Vin Deisel or maybe even Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson. They both seem to be mired firmly in what for Arnold was his "Kindergarten Cop" phase. They'd be ok I guess. For a moment I thought about Ving Rhames, but he's never really carried his own film. Even TV is a little devoid of the big bodied action star, nobody leaps to mind from Heros, or Lost, or BSG. You don't think too long before saying "Well maybe the remake could have a woman?" Since Angelina Jolie might be the most credible action star of the past decade. But that seems wrong.
So really, what happened that has us rebounding so heavily from Stallone and Schwarzenegger? Where's the new Dolf Lundgren or Carl Weathers? I think I'd even go Van Damme. It's pretty sad.
In their time I don't think anyone would have said those guys were the best actors around, but there was a niche they filled very well, and I am not sure there's anyone waiting to step in right now. How odd.
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1 comment:
Actually, the best thing they could do in re-making "The Running Man" would be to actually stick to Stephen King's original story. Like so many adaptations of King's work, they bought the rights from him and promptly re-wrote it to the point it where it bears almost no resemblance whatsoever to the original novella.
The protagonist in King's story wasn't some muscle-bound action star. He was an average ordinary guy living in a dystopian future America where a handful of entertainment corporations control everything. He was desperate because he couldn't even afford food and medicine for his kid, and so signed up to be a contestant on The Running Man-- the top-rated show on TV.
It wasn't some cross between Thunderdome and WCW, as portrayed in the Schwarzenegger movie, where the contestant is chased around an abandoned warehouse by guys in flashing neon suits.
Basically, after a contestant is introduced on-air to the audience, he is given a 24 hour head start, after which the network sends out death squads to hunt him down. He can go anywhere and hide anywhere. He can take hostages if he wants (not that prospect of collateral casulaties would stop the death squads). In short, he can do whatever it takes to survive. If he survives 30 days, he wins a billion dollars. The network stacks the deck a bit by offering a standing reward to the general public-- anyone who aids the death squads in killing the Running Man earns substantial monetary rewards. So basically the contestant is met with hostiles everywhere he goes.
The novella has a lot of social commentary and philosophical subtext going for it that is completely missing from the abortion of a movie that bears its name.
Also, I would expect that even if a re-make where to remain faithful to the source material, the ending would have to be radically changed, seeing as how it's directly evocative of 9-11.
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