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Post by Ace on Jan 13, 2005 23:10:00 GMT -5
Take this with a grain of salt. It's Contact Music. They don't quote a source, they rarely do, they like to pick pieces out of other interviews and piece them together with supposition and paraphrasing built around. Last week's offering was about "Brosnan in DEATH race" which um amounted to them pulling a couple of quotes from a story he jokingly told to Best Life about a kid in a ferrari challenging him to a race which he thought better of.  With that preamble: Contact Music: BROSNAN CONSIDERS REMINGTON RETURN PIERCE BROSNAN is hoping to return to the role that almost cost him JAMES BOND. The Irish actor is in negotiations to bring back his smooth detective REMINGTON STEELE for a new movie even though the bosses of the TV series, which launched him as a star in America, once forced him to turn down 007. Brosnan's contract forced him to turn down the chance to play Bond in THE LIVING DAYLIGHTS in the mid-1980s. He was lucky enough for the role to be offered to him again in the 1990s. But the actor says, "I like the idea (of Remington Steele) I think a new version would do well. "The programme had a style and glamour that's missing on TV now." ========================== Notice no actual quotes about him doing the role again... at all.  Ace |
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Post by sparklingblue on Jan 14, 2005 14:56:50 GMT -5
tee hee Cute, but surely wishful thinking on the author's part. |
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Post by Myrtle Groggins on Jan 14, 2005 20:33:19 GMT -5
Wishful thinking, to be sure. No mention of Stephanie. Dare we think they'd choose ANOTHER Laura??  Wonder if Doris would be willing to play Mildred again? Food for thought. |
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Post by Lauryn on Jan 15, 2005 18:04:45 GMT -5
Negotiations, eh? Right. As usual, Ace hits the nail squarely on the head. When you read something with a single direct quote it’s often easier on the nerves to ignore the rest. Sadly, once something hits the wires it’s part of the endlessly recycling news cycle, and liable to show up in respectable newspapers, too. Except for industry organs like Variety and Hollywood Reporter, distressingly few these days seem inclined to take entertainment pieces seriously enough to hold them to the usual fact checking standards.
It sounds like the SMA was so taken aback by being asked a question about Remington Steele that did not involve its cancellation / revival and the Bond role that he replied by saying something nice about its currency in the here and now -- and bang on the money as regards what television fare is short of these days. Movies, for that matter. I tend to view the chances of a movie being made of RS as having just slightly better odds than the Publisher’s Clearing House Prize Patrol showing up at my door with a large check, but never mind.
I would guess that it would only come to fruition in the near term if PB were directly involved, either acting or producing, or both, assuming they could acquire the film rights. RS is unusual in that the majority of TV shows into movies (Star Trek / X-Files are exceptions I can think of right now) have not had former TV version stars who are still viable in a leading role; usually by the time it comes around age is against them, not to mention most aren’t, as a rule, considered bankable in films, and are relegated to cameos. Hard though it sounds (it goes double if you're a woman) SZ might not even be considered for the film’s Laura despite what fans may think. I doubt she’d agree to anything less, if she was agreeable at all, LOL!
Most of the re-makes that get financed seem either to have something going for them as an action or sci-fi-ish franchise, (Star Treks, X-Files, SWAT, Mission Impossible) or are ripe for parody (The Brady Bunch), or go for both of those approaches at once (I Spy, Starsky and Hutch). Since RS was never a huge hit or a cult favorite it would be a gamble, and one not really suited for any of those templates. If they concentrated on the characters and updating its “old movie aura” and the classic elements of style (in the vein of TCA) they might have something -- but what a considerable “if” that is. Hmm.
There’s a lot of baggage involved, not just from the actor’s working histories on the show, but in how an RS project would be judged in the marketplace. That is, would PB be seen as reverting to the television womb, going backwards in his career post-Bond and all that? Unless he’d just come off a huge box-office hit I’m sure that notion would cross his mind. That perception would be lessened if he didn’t star as Steele but merely produced, but how attractive would that be as a re-make proposition?
Maybe down the road (after he’s made the AARP cover a few times) the SMA could plausibly hand the RS role over to some bright young thing, though chances are the project would have died off of natural causes (disinterest). I wonder how territorial PB is about the character? Probably less than I am, LOL! Maybe I’m just hoping it’s pointless because I don’t want to see anyone else in Mr. Steele’s size eleven and a half shoes <winks to Ace and YS>.
OK, for the sake of argument, it could happen, with or without him. And cats and dogs may mate and pigs may fly and spectral horsemen appear on the horizon…
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Post by Ace on Jan 15, 2005 19:18:05 GMT -5
Another actor playing Steele, would probably never happen because the character is so tightly tied with PB. He's even said much of Steele is just him playing himself and so many of Steele's talents, quirks and even some of his backstory is stuff ripped from PB's life from the writers. Any wide appeal the movie would have outside diehard fans and to the general public would be to see PB as Steele. As Lauryn said, it's not a high concept film or one with a huge cult or fan following. It was a series that took much of it's unique charm and style from it's actors, particularly IMO, PB. So it's more a star driven concept. If PB hadn't remained so forefront in the public eye then the character would probably have more of a chance of being played by someone else. And it's one of the reasons (including just Box office concerns) that the role of Laura could probably be more easily recast for a film. But yeah, don't see it happenning in any case, not when he can do a TCA2-Topkapi instead to wet his appetite for playing naughty boys who like to steal things with style while dressing very well.  Ace |
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Post by Yuliya on Jan 17, 2005 12:47:42 GMT -5
I'm with Ace. And let's face it - if the writing is good and PB's character is stylish and slightly naughty (or very naughty, but then he'll have to be very stylish as well) - do we really care what the character's name is?  |
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Post by sparklingblue on Jan 19, 2005 17:24:13 GMT -5
LOL! Yuliya is so right! And for me, RS without PB is just inconceiveable. ::shudders at the idea:: |
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