Film

An archive of blog entries about films and film production.

News

Bionic Woman to return as superwoman

10 October 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Steve Austin and Jamie SummersBack in the 70s and 80s, there was a whole fleet of bionics shows: The Six Million Dollar Man, starring Lee Majors, which slowly metamorphosed from being rather an interesting spy show into a lump of rubbish kids’ sci-fi show; and The Bionic Woman, a spin-off starring Lindsay Wagner, which from day one was a lump of old rubbish about a bionic schoolteacher who also does spy work on the side. There was also a pilot, The Bionic Boy, but the less said about that the better, as well as a series of reunion movies in the 80s, one of which starred Sandra Bullock as a potential new bionic woman.

It’s old, old news that The Six Million Dollar Man is being remade as a comedy movie starring Jim Carrey. My, am I ever looking forward to that. But who would have thought the more anticipated remake would be The Bionic Woman?

It’s been announced today that David Eicke, exec producer of Battlestar Galactica, is to remake The Bionic Woman as a television series. Being me, I’m slightly miffed they’ve decided to do away with the spy angle, in favour of exploring “the role of professional women in contemporary society and how they juggle their various roles.”

“It’s a complete reconceptualization of the title,” Eick told Daily Variety. “We’re using the title as a starting point, and that’s all.”

“It’s using the idea of artificial technology as a metaphor for what contemporary women sometimes feel is necessary to do everything that needs to be done,” Eick said

Bionic woman as metaphor for superwoman? That’s, erm, literal. Plus plot-wise, who’s going to stump up the extra cash necessary to make the world’s first bionic career woman-come-soccer mom? “Six million dollars just so she can work and spend time with the kids? Hire her some domestics, you fools! You can buy a truckload of illegals for that money! Or how about we get her deadbeat husband to help out round the house sometimes, rather than spending taxpayers’ dollars to fix up their home life!”

So I’m still not looking forward to that. I’m just looking forward to it more than I am to The Six Billion Dollar Man, or whatever they’re planning on calling it.

Anchorman 2?

9 October 2006 Rob Buckley Post a comment

Will Ferrell is interested in making a sequel to Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, one of those films that you have to have a certain frame of mind to love. I do.

His plan?

I would love to do a sequel,“ the actor told The Toronto Star. ”I was thinking, all of a sudden, for no reason, he’s a European correspondent and has to do foreign languages which he knows nothing about.“

Sounds good already. However, given his original plan for Anchorman was to have a bunch of news anchors crash-land on a desert island and then have to fight ninja monkeys, that all may change in development.

Film

Robert Downey Jr: superhero

29 September 2006 Rob Buckley 1 Comment

Iron ManAnd lo, the rehabilitation of Robert Downey Jr did continue. It’s just been announced that everyone’s favourite former junkie and top-grade actor is to be Tony Stark in the new Iron Man movie, which is being directed by Jon Favreau. The project’s already had Tom Cruise’s name hanging from it, an idea that didn’t exactly endear itself to Iron Man fans, but Downey’s a pretty good choice, I reckon.

For those of you not in the know, Iron Man features a billionaire industrialist who fashions himself an iron weapons suit as a means to keep himself alive from a terminal heart condition and to escape a prison camp (I’m précising here: there was a weird amount of Vietnam-era propaganda in the origins story). In common with all comics these days, there are attempts to inject some depth into the character. So there’s a fair amount of angst by Stark over his weapons-manufacturing past and he later descends into alcoholism.

Who reckons Downey can do that?