Bloody-Disgusting today picked up on a very interesting tidbit that was rather quietly broken earlier this month. In an exclusive interview with Moviepicturefilm.com, Shawn Wayans stated that he and his brothers Marlon and Keenen Ivory Wayans (the minds behind Scary Movie 1 & 2) are working on a big-screen adaptation of the popular 1960s television show The Munsters.
The height of '60s cheese TV, The Munsters sitcom chronicled the lives of a friendly monster family trying their best to fit into suburban America.
Wayans was quick to point out that he and his brothers are writing and producing the film, but will not be starring in it (*whew!* - The Honeymooners, anyone??). Rather, as Shawn says, they're "going to get some white people and paint them green."
The Wayans are "contemporizing" the show for its movie treatment. They also plan to write it for a PG-13 rating. I'm curious about that one, since I wouldn't imagine The Munsters to be anything harder than a G. Perhaps they're giving it a little more of an edge, a la The Addams Family movies? I wonder just what they mean by "contemporizing"...
In Hollywood, "contemporizing" usually means making a movie that somehow becomes instantly more dated and less contemporary than the original thing they were remaking in the first place. Classic TV is timeless, modern movie remakes of classic TV shows is not. It's just lazy, uninspired, and unimaginative ways to fool people into buying a ticket.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing that gives me some hope here is that The Addams Family movies were so well done in my opinion, particularly the first one (although that was based more on the comic strip than the TV show.) In that case, the characters were left alone, and the only thing contemporized was the world they lived in. Hopefully that will be the case here, though with the Wayans at the helm I can't imagine as smart a picture as The Addams Family. Although, you could really say the same about the two original TV shows, couldn't you?
ReplyDeleteThis'll be horse sh*t.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty confident my six-year-old and three-year-old will love it lol. Beyond that....we'll see.
ReplyDeleteI so do not like that idea of this, ha. I'm sure a good job could be done, but with the Waynes behind it, I just can't see it being worthwhile. Those two annoy the piss outta me.
ReplyDeleteYeah, that seems to be the general consensus...The Wayans don't seem to be very popular among genre fans, despite the Scary Movie series--or maybe because of it lol.
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