Remember the 1985 movie called REMO WILLIAMS: THE ADVENTURE BEGINS?
It starred Fred Ward as a policeman who is apparently killed in action, but is actually resuscitated to become part of a group called "Cure". Cure, it turns out, is an organization of agents whose mission is to smack down bad guys who've either corrupted the criminal justice system, or are operating beyond its reach.
To accomplish this, Remo is trained in special tactics by a guy named Chuin (Joel Grey) - who forges him into a bad-ass, super-acrobatic assassin with ungodly reflexes and speed.
The film was based on Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir's novel THE DESTROYER (which subsequently generated a series of books). It was directed by Guy Hamilton (a James Bond director who also came thisclose to helming SUPERMAN: THE MOVIE), and featured a pounding score from Craig Safan (who had the giddy audacity to use gun shots in a percussion motif!)
The lackluster movie was considered to be rather lite weight compared to Murphy and Sapir's source material. The books are known for their brutal dispatching of high-profile archetypes: An OJ-styled personality is killed by Remo with a golfball traveling at 500 mph; a Tarantino-esque director is fed into a projector head first; a Ronald Reagan personae is temporarily cured from Alzheimer’s and kidnapped. None of the series' biting relevance is evident in the 1985 movie adaptation. Maybe they'll get it right the second time around, because it looks like they're trying again...
Seems Robert Evans...yes...Robert Evans...has secured rights to THE DESTORYER. Film...TV...games...the works. Will Evans, who produced MARATHON MAN, BLACK SUNDAY, and CHINATOWN, give Remo his balls back by delivering a kick ass, socially satirical, hard-driving action fest? Or, will Remo be senselessly bludgeoned by the Robert Evans who gave us POPEYE, THE PHANTOM, or SLIVER?
In a marketplace already deluged by Bond, Bourne, and Bauer (ever notice how all of their initials are “JB”?), Remo will either fit right in, or simply be “too much”. This being said, there's some great source material to be finessed and caressed by approaching these books for what they are, rather than distilling them to their simplest, lowest common denominator components. It'll be quite interesting to see where THE DESTROYER goes from here.
Thanks to The Shinanju Apprentice for the heads-up about this, and for his examples of murder from Remoland.
