It's time for some script news, and there's a lot of new word on scripts about established properties being lined up. Let's dive right into it.
I know it's hard to admit if you're a fan of the original (and who isn't), but "The Karate Kid" remake was actually pretty great. It was also a massive box-office hit (over $350 million worldwide) and Cyrus Voris and Ethan Reif were immediately hired to write a sequel. And as development generally tends to go, tweaks are being made and Sony have now brought in Zak Penn to oversee a rewrite. And yes, that's the same Zak Penn who wrote "Elektra" and "X-Men: The Last Stand." Oh dear.
Remember "The Jetsons" movie that Kanye West spoke about possibly taking up a role as creative director on? Well that project has also hired new writers to pen a rewrite — Evan Susser and Van Robichaux, whose script "Chewie" (described as a comedic look at the making of "Star Wars") is currently in production. "The Jetsons" were previously revived for an animated big-screen outing in 1990, and the world needs and wants another revival even less over 20 years later. But maybe we'd be interested if they let Kanye write the damn thing.
Johnny 5 is still alive, and Dimension Films have hired Matt Lieberman to pen the script for the "Short Circuit" remake, which has been in development since 2009 (tellingly not long after the success of "Wall-E"). Lieberman graduated from the Disney writers program and this will be his first feature-length writing credit. We hope they're teaching their students how to write great Steve Guttenberg cameos over at Disney. "Hop" director Tim Hill is attached to direct, so yeah, don't expect hard sci-fi.
When Sony snapped up the distribution rights to the much buzzed Indonesian martial arts film "The Raid" at TIFF, their genre shingle Screen Gems also secured the rights to a remake. They've now hired former black-listed writer Brad Inglesby (whose scripts "The Low Dweller," "Die Bad" and "Run All Night" are all in development) to pen the remake. We've heard great things about "The Raid," so hopefully they keep its director Gareth Evans involved with the remake to work alongside the promising writer. [Variety/Variety/Deadline/Deadline]