higgins
Han Solo, P.I.
More folks join new pilots
Sorry, gang, I've been away for awhile so everyone stand back while I dump a big pile of casting news all over the floor (try not to get any on you):
John Michael Higgins will star in the new ABC comedy pilot The Thick of It, and by "new" I mean it's yet another remake of a British sitcom. It's being helmed by Arrested Development creator and will also star Oliver Platt, Alex Borstein (Family Guy) and Michael McKean. The pilot is being directed by Christopher Guest.
Also, on ABC, Mark Moses of Desperate Housewives has joined a comedy pilot as a senator whose daughter (Michelle Trachtenberg) falls in love with a staff member (Eric Christian Olsen) of his rival.
Headache-inducing news of the day: a Magnum, P.I. movie?
Oh, now they've gone too far.
The crazy "let's remake an old TV show and put it on the big screen!" mania continues. Magnum, P.I. is coming to the big screen, and it now has a writer and director. It's Rawson Marshall Thurber (Dogdeball).
I have absolutely no confidence that this will be a good movie. Nothing against the director. I'm talking about the whole concept of remaking TV shows for the big screen. To put it bluntly, who the fuck wants to see a big screen Magnum movie without Tom Selleck? Maybe he'll be in it, but I seriously doubt it. They'll go younger, hipper, edgier, with rap on the soundtrack (see also: Miami Vice).
Studio execs are clueless. The reason why certain shows are beloved in the first place is because of a specific time, a specific place in history, a specific cast. It's not that Charlie's Angels, the original show, was such a great concept or plot, it's that it was that three specific actresses and the 1970s. People liked it back then because of the T and A, and they like it now for the nostalgia/kitsch value. Bringing it back and just putting three other actresses in it? That's why it sucked. Same with The Fugitive, The Beverly Hillbillies, I Spy, and a ton of others.
(Hell, this Magnum flick might turn out to be a good "movie," but it won't be Magnum, P.I.)
And the worse part? This pretty much means any future TV reunion movie with Selleck, Hillerman, Manetti, et al has no chance of ever becoming a reality.
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