Beaks here...
Big doin's on the unecessary remake front today: A-list screenwriter David Koepp has been hired to write THE THIN MAN for director Rob Marshall and movie star Johnny Depp. According to Deadline, the idea is to conflate the first two films (THE THIN MAN and AFTER THE THIN MAN), while going for a "SHERLOCK HOLMES-like stylized treatment". I take this to mean that, in lieu of rapid-fire banter, Nick and Nora will drunkenly knock the shit out of each other and Asta.
To be fair, Koepp does have a history of straining to approximate screwball comedy repartee (most notably for Ron Howard's passable THE PAPER), so he's as qualified to fuck this up as anyone, I guess. Deadline is also reporting that Marshall is angling to "work in a musical number or two", which seems kind of odd. Are they trying to recapture the nine-performance Broadway magic of 1991's NICK & NORA, or is this just wishful thinking on Marshall's part (and weakly-sourced reporting from Fleming)?
Warner Bros. is footing the bill for this nonsense, which irks me not because it might sully the impeccable reputation of the Powell/Loy series (they're untouchable), but because all three creatives involved have a reputation of settling for mediocrity - at best - in the name of franchise building. A modern-day take on THE THIN MAN would at least be something different, but Depp and Marshall have been aiming for period the whole time, which just smacks of laziness - and if you were unfortunate enough to sit through this summer's abhorrent PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN: ON STRANGER TIDES, you know these guys have no qualms about phoning it in.
So I'm not looking forward to this one.
