The Screengrab : russell brand

Morning Deal Report: Failure of Imagination Threat Level Orange

Scott Von Doviak — Tue, 28 Apr 2009 14:30:00 GMT

Universal is remaking Drop Dead Fred. Let me repeat that. Universal is remaking Drop Dead Fred. Perhaps you vaguely recall the 1991 original, which “starred Phoebe Cates as a wallflower who loses her job and husband during the course of a lunch hour. Forced to live back home, she's reunited with her childhood imaginary friend (Brit actor Rik Mayall), who promises to help but causes more havoc.” The new version will star Russell Brand as the imaginary friend and will be written by “Dennis McNicholas, one of the writers of Universal's upcoming Land of the Lost,” per The Hollywood Reporter. Of course it will.

The Universal remake train isn’t stopping there, however. They’re also planning a new version of Videodrome. “The new picture will modernize the concept, infuse it with the possibilities of nano-technology and blow it up into a large-scale sci-fi action thriller.” And you might be surprised to learn that David Cronenberg “has no role in the film as yet.” Or you might not.

If that doesn’t do it for you, how about a spiffy new screen version of Humpty Dumpty. “The 3-D sci-fi horror pic is about a half-human, half-alien creature who embarks on a murderous rampage after his alien mother is abused by two rednecks in the Deep South,” Variety reports. Oh…that Humpty Dumpty?

Related:
Brand X: Sexy Beast Russell Brand Storms America
The Cruise/Cronenberg Circle

Morning Deal Report: Remaking the Stone

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 15:30:00 GMT

I have nothing but remakes for you this morning, I’m afraid. It’s up to you, the Screengrab reader, to determine which among them is most egregiously unnecessary. We begin with Romancing the Stone, which itself was considered little more than a Raiders of the Lost Ark knockoff before cleaning up at the box office and spawning the much less beloved sequel The Jewel of the Nile. Now Fox has tapped Daniel McDermott to pen a remake of “the story of a repressed romance novelist who travels to Colombia to find her missing sister only to meet up with an American soldier of fortune,” per The Hollywood Reporter.

But that’s not all! THR is also reporting that “Russell Brand might soon be caught between the moon and New York City.” Yes, a remake of Arthur is on the table. As you’ll recall, the original starred Dudley Moore as “a boozy playboy rascal who is set to inherit a fortune if he marries an heiress his family thinks will make something out of him. However, he falls in love with a working-class woman and turns to his valet for help when his family makes him choose between money and love.” We’re interested in the remake only if Liza Minnelli reprises her role as the working-class woman Brand romances.

You’re saying, “Please, Screengrab! No more remakes!” But we cannot oblige. John Carpenter’s They Live is coming back to life. As you know, “The movie is known for a fight scene that lasts 5 1⁄2 minutes and for the line, ‘I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass ... and I'm all out of bubblegum.’” And Hollywood is all out of ideas.

Related:
Brand X: Sexy Beast Russell Brand Storms America
Attack of the '80s Sci-Fi Remakes

Morning Deal Report: Jamie Foxx is a Law Abiding Citizen

Scott Von Doviak — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:30:00 GMT

Frank Darabont is back and Stephen King is nowhere to be found. Darabont will direct Law Abiding Citizen, set to star Jamie Foxx and Gerard Butler. “Written by Kurt Wimmer and Darabont, the script follows a successful assistant D.A. (Butler) who finds himself at the center of a vigilante plot hatched by a traumatized victim of the legal system (Foxx). Foxx's character is devastated to learn that, because of a plea bargain, one of his wife and daughter's murderers will be set free. So he unleashes revenge on the killers and those who made the deal,” says The Hollywood Reporter. Hey guys, Charles Bronson just called. He wants his big-ass gun back.

Julie Taymor is collaborating with her first screenwriter, William Shakespeare, again. The Titus director will bring a gender-bending version of The Tempest to the screen. Helen Mirren will play “Prospera,” and the cast also includes Russell Brand as the jester Trinculo, Djimon Hounsou as deformed slave Caliban, and Alfred Molina as the drunken butler Stephano. I kind of wish I was watching this right now.

It seems like only yesterday I was telling you about George Romero’s plans for a new zombie movie. (Actually it was three days ago, but who’s counting?) Now one of Romero’s lesser known early works is getting the remake treatment. Breck “son of Michael” Eisner will direct The Crazies, which “revolves around people in a small Kansas town who are beset by a virus that causes insanity and death after a mysterious toxin contaminates the local water supply,” per Variety. A quick check of Eisner’s IMDb page reveals he also has reboots of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and Flash Gordon in the works. I can’t stop him.

Related:
Raiders of the Leaked Frank Darabont Screenplay
Take Five: Romero Alive!

Brand X: Sexy Beast Russell Brand Storms America

Phil Nugent — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 17:00:00 GMT

British comic Russell Brand is the secret star of Forgetting Sarah Marshall, playing the oversexed yet hard-to-hate rock star who takes up with the ex-girlfriend who the hero can't get over. Brand recalls that his character "was originally meant to be an author, very bookish. They very kindly, and fortunately for me, rewrote the part on our first meeting, when I was dressed thusly, in this sort of sexy-licorice, S&M, Willie Wonka, rocket-scarecrow attire. That worked out incredibly well for me." Brand, who was encouraged to improvise in the role, admits to having modeled his performance in part on the battling brothers of Oasis, Noel and Liam Gallagher. He also modeled it in part on himself. As Jay Clendenin of the Los Angeles Times summarizes his career highlights, Brand is "a proud three-time winner of PETA's Sexiest Vegetarian of the Year, the Sun's two-time Shagger of the Year and GQ's Most Stylish Man in 2006 and Least Stylish Man in 2007. He's also a recovering heroin and crack abuser whose bestselling memoir, My Booky Wook, opens in a clinic for sex addicts -- or, as he wrote, 'the terminally saucy.'" Always eager to push the outside of the envelope, Brand was once booted off MTV UK after appearing dressed as Osama bin Laden one day after the 9/11 attacks. (He and the network have since kissed and made up.) Asked about the incident today, Brand only shrugs: ""I was a drug addict then, and I thought it was funny. In comedy, I think one has no other obligation than to be funny. Now, on that day, I did not fulfill that basic obligation."

Since attracting attention during the Hackney Empire theater's annual "new talent" competition in 2000, Brand has built a career for himself as a stand-up comic and TV and radio personality, often using his own tabloid exploits as fodder for his act. He broke into American movies last year with a small role in Penelope, and is now filming a part in Bedtime Stories, starring Adam Sandler as a man who entertains his niece and nephew with stories that magically start to come true, and which, you know, sounds just horrible. More intriguingly, he's also said to be adapting his memoir with director Michael Winterbottom, whose sobersides reputation may have to be rehauled if he keeps launching British comedians onto the screen. Will the film verson include the scene at the GQ awards where Rod Stewart, of all people, in what may or may not have been a joke, talked trash about Brand from the stage in retaliation for Brand's having claimed to have shagged Rod's daughter? And if it does, will Steve Coogan play Rod?