Harry here and pissed off like hell. I love MGM, I really do. I love that ol Lion roar. Love the history of the place. I hate the fact that MGM has been in the pits for the last several years... developing crap, passing on the good scripts, going with projects that everyone in their brother points to and says... BAD MOVIE! Well, what is worse is when OVER DEVELOPMENT occurs with a property that could very well kick major fucking ass. The original draft of ROLLERBALL was a jewel. It was smart where the original film was dumb. The action was excellently scripted. It completed the picture of the corporate society... how it came about, why it existed, and why it would ultimately fail. The film was a personal journey through a society that was being weaned from personal desires and ambitions. And in addition to that, it just ruled the earth. Along comes McTiernan, and ya know... this reminds me a lot of what happened to SUPERMAN LIVES when Tim Burton signed on, or to I AM LEGEND when Ridley Scott came aboard. MGM signed a name director to make a film based on a script that everyone loved. Said director comes aboard and completely ass-rapes original screenwriter's fantastic script, and ends up with a TV Dinner that tastes like crap. I've read both drafts. This new draft is inane, stupid and BAD... BAAAAAAD.... BAAAAAAAAD. The pre McTiernan draft rules though. Oh well, I suppose it's MGM's lot in life to make SPECIES 2, MOD SQUAD and SUPERNOVA and films in that tradition.
Harry,
I know you love the first draft of the Rollerball remake I sent you as much as I do. Well, McTiernan seems to have lost his mind. From mrshowbiz.com, here are his recent comments about it:
"John McTiernan was aboard producer Andrew Vajna's yacht at Cannes, trying to get a bigger dose of caffeine than what usually comes in a tiny espresso cup.
He's going to need lots of caffeine this summer when he begins filming his remake of 1975's Rollerball in Montreal. Interestingly, the ultra-violent sci-fi original, with James Caan as an over-the-hill "Rollerball" athlete, was a major box-office disappointment. McTiernan, who had a hit remaking The Thomas Crown Affair last year, hopes to get it right this time. "You take something that is a still-fascinating premise and figure out how to collect on the premise," said the man still best known for Die Hard.
McTiernan said that the original suffered because "we thought were going to see the hockey game from hell, and instead it was science fiction sociology. I just am going back and pulling that stuff out. The studio [MGM] had a rewrite that had even more nonsense about explaining a world where people get hurt regularly so other people can get money from others watching them get hurt. It's my premise [that] you don't have to go into the future, into this never-never land for that situation."
Does that mean Rollerball, due summer 2001 and starring Election's Chris Klein in a role for which Wes Bentley was considered, is really Gladiator minus togas and sandals? "It's not Gladiator; that's a different story. But it is Spartacus. [That is, it's Spartacus] up through the rebellion. We don't get to the crucifixion."
For the five months that he'll spend filming in Montreal, McTiernan is actually constructing his own sports stadium. Apparently, a real one won't do, even though he scouted real stadiums in Eastern Europe, the U.S., and Canada. "I want something that feels like a cockfight. I want a building where what you're going to see feels illicit, what you're going to see feels immoral and spooky."
It's sad... that first draft was so good, and would have been a real improvement on an already excellent classic... instead we're going to get a piece of crap...
Kyle Reese
