From denofgeek, Warner Bros dusts off the 1981 Sean Connery sci-fi movie Outland, and brings in the director of Shoot ‘Em Up to call the shots. Marvellous.
Well, blimey. Some Hollywood executive has been spending their weekends trawling the archives at their local Blockbuster, that much seems certain.
The latest addition, therefore, to the Hollywood remake gravy train is the 1981 Sean Connery western in space sci-fi flick, Outland, which Warner Bros is bringing back to the big screen. Outland was originally written and directed by Peter Hyams, and features - of course - Sean Connery (sporting an obscene amount of body hair) as the police marshal on a mining colony on one of Jupiter's moons. In the original, he was faced with the late Peter Boyle's nasty boss, whose workers are under the influence of a drug to boost their productivity. In our office, that stuff is called ‘caffeine'. Ahem.
Anyway, the new version would be just another remake to us were it not for the personnel involved. Because being lined up to direct is Michael Davis, who brought the utterly bonkers and deliriously entertaining Shoot ‘Em Up to the screen. Davis told Variety, "We're staying true to the thematic heart of `Outland' while expanding the space frontier concept." Which, roughly translated, we'd suggest actually means they're doing what they want.
There's no time scale in place, but the fact that there's a director on board does seem to indicate that it's full steam ahead. And this may, under Davis' stewardship, prove to be a remake worth watching.
[JPX] My secret shame, I have never seen Outland.
5 comments:
JPX, don't worry about it. It's actually pretty awful.
Peter Hyams, the writer/director of Outland, is nearly a tragic figure (in my opinion). He just wants it so badly. He's spent decades working his ass off, trying to be a master of cinematic science fiction. He's earnest and dedicated and he knows what's good and what's bad, and he pours his heart and soul into everything he does. The problem is, he's just not that talented.
What he really wants is to be Ridley Scott, or James Cameron, or Stanley Kubrick (blasphemy!). I think he'd even settle for being Richard Donner, But, instead, he's just plain old Peter Hyams, the writer/director of Capricorn One, Outland, 2010 (ugh; particularly painful), TimeCop etc. etc.
Outland is especially blatant in its Hyams-ian tragedy. He's very obviously just seen Alien like everybody else in the world, and it's clearly driven him crazy with an urgent need to have made it himself. Outland is to Alien as Billy Joel is to Springsteen; as "Bloom County" is to "Doonesbury"; as Aerosmith is to the Stones. (Except that all those examples have charms of their own, whereas Outland just makes you want to turn it off and watch Alien again.)
"Outland is to Alien as Billy Joel is to Springsteen; as "Bloom County" is to "Doonesbury"; as Aerosmith is to the Stones." Hilarious! That's a pretty bad list of film credits, although Capricorn One falls into the so-bad-its-good category. I'm curious about Outland because Sean Connery stars and he was still pretty big at the time. Based on your description the entire film sounds like a misfire, which means that I must watch it! Why are there so few good sci-fi movies? I want to see Moon, the trailer shows promise.
In 1981, crushing out on Margot Kidder in Superman II, I actually bought an issue of Starlog magazine instead of just reading it in the store. It also featured the miniature effects hoo-ha from Outland, which was intriguing to me because I knew I'd never get to see it. This intrigue still echoes in my head by occasionally causing me to think of Outland as a notable sleeper movie that is actually something special.
It isn't. The truth is I rarely, if ever, think of it. It occurs to me that the production design is good, but it's probably just an okay (if that) retread of the Nostromo's interiors. Clearly I'm still trying to justify buying that overpriced magazine.
I just looked at Hyams's imdb page to confirm a suspicion of my own, and yes, he did direct the useless Schwarzeneggar flick End of Days. And also the godawful The Relic. What an embarrassing resume.
Because they're very difficult!
Right! It's not like he's making new Saw movies. These are examples of huge efforts on the part of hundreds of people and lots of money to turn out something completely lame and forgettable.
I mean, he's "successful." How weird is that? I imagine being that famously mediocre must be a hard pill to swallow some days.
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