SEQUEL NEWS ROUNDUP 2/9/12

The week is already off to an interesting start with some news about quite a few sequels, some you have heard of, some you may have not.  Read on to find out.

Wet Hot American Summer Sequel may be a go!  The cult comedy favorite has been in talks to get a sequel for a number of years, and it looks like now more than ever that it’s closer than ever to actually happening.  Director of the original David Wain recently mentioned on the Bravo talk show “Watch What Happens Live” (Huffington Post), along with star/collaborator Michael Showalter, that in regards to the sequel it will be:  ”Absolutely yes.  100& yes.  The whole gang.  Everyone’s back.  We’re doing it.”

The original cast starred a plethora of young up-and-comers, including Bradley Cooper, Elizabeth Banks and Paul Rudd.  So when he says “everyone’s back,” does that mean for reals everyone?  One can only hope.  That would also mean Janeane Garofalo, Michael Ian Black, David Hyde Pierce, Ken Marino, Molly Shannon, Judah Friedlander and many, many others are back too.  We’ll find out more as we hear it!

Billy Connolly joins the cast of The Hobbit.  Believe it or not but The Hobbit is still shooting.  Its release date may be for later this year on December 14, 2012 but that’s still lots of time to get some CGI and new actors in.  In this case Billy Connolly has joined on as great dwarf and cousin of Thorin Oakenshield.  Peter Jackson himself announced the news that “We could not think of a more fitting actor to play Dain Ironfoot, the stanchest and toughest of Dwarves, than Billy Connolly, the Big Yin himself. With Billy stepping into this role, the cast of The Hobbit is now complete. We can’t wait to see him on the Battlefield!”  (Deadline)

With this pedigree it’s easy to say The Hobbit is looking like one of the most solid casts and crews for any sequel/prequel being made right now.  The two-part prequel begins this Winter and will wrap up in 2013, so stay tuned.

Brian De Palma’s Heat remake will star Jason Statham.  Let me set things straight first:  you’re thinking of the wrong Heat.  Not the 1995 Michael Mann classic Heat, but the 1987 Heat, starring Burt Reynolds (Deadline).  The film follows a soft-hearted bodyuard in Las Vegas who falls in love with a woman in the mafia and the chaos ensues.  If you’re concerned about quality in this film’s crew relax.  The screenplay is being written by William Goldman, who not only has penned such classics as Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, All The President’s Men, The Princess Bride, Misery, and a host of others, but he also wrote the original 1987 script based on his own novel.

Overall this could turn out to be a good action drama to watch, but who knows with De Palma at the reigns?  It looks somewhat uncertain, seeing as his last few films have all flopped commercially and critically, losing a lot of the high-caliber name he once had.  Anyone a fan of the original Heat screaming “blasphemy?!”