Will Carr's Johnny Be Good?
by
Clint Morris (Tuesday, October 27th, 2009 at 3:17 am )
Steve Carr ("Paul Blart : Mall Cop") will direct the long-touted remake of John Badham's "Short Circuit", according to
Variety.
Scripted by Dan Milano ("
Robot Chicken
"), the remake is a robot reboot that brings the iconic Johnny 5 into the 21st century. Built by the military to be a highly sophisticated weapon, Johnny 5 develops a conscience and personality after being hit by lightning. He befriends a lonely boy and his fractured family.
Look, I
know John Badham's not a master of the art or anything but he definitely knew his way around a fun movie - "Stakeout", "Saturday Night Fever", "War
Games"; all exceedingly fun flicks - and I can't say that for Steve Carr. If anything, Carr's one of those last-minute gun-for-hires that seems to be able to effectively point and shoot - and work with kids. And, well, that's about it. He's usually hired to helm unmemorable, sometimes monotonous kids flicks - like "Are We There Yet", "Daddy Day Care", "Dr. Dolittle 2" and "Rebound", which suggests the "Short Circuit" redo will be even more family-friendly than the original was (and a fairly good chance Ice Cube or Eddie Murphy might star in it). If the latter bunch were good kids flicks, it'd be a different matter, but they're not, so, personally, I'm not holding out much hope for Johnny 5's rebirth.
But then Dimension don't seem to be about making the best
movies possible at the moment, they're just trying to stay afloat, so if they can milk a few of these franchises they own the rights to (they've also got new "Scream", "Hellraiser", "Children of the Corn" and "Spy Kids" flicks on the way) they will - regardless of how sore the teat is.
(If they manage to bring Fisher Stevens back it'll score an extra star - or at least the one - from me).