notgettingpaid

My interest in this is sinking like a rock...not because of Farrell (who would be excellent), but because, apparently, the guy who is responsible for 'Ultraviolet' wrote the screenplay. Not a good sign.

Farrell needs to get a copy of the screenplay and pass it around to several trusted friends for a good read before signing on to this one.

Oh, f***, people, just sign Olyphant, give the director his first choice, and spend the extra money on the movie, okay? This is obviously just about getting a 'name' to put on the poster. How big of a name was Kurt Russell in 1981?

Cameron has admitted his hatred for having to write...and it is heartbreaking to imagine the work he would be doing if he didn't, because he is brilliant at it. He was in his thirties when he wrote most of this, and it reads like the work of a nine-year-old with a notepad, a flashlight, and a blanket over his head, because that is essentially what he has to be in order to get into writing mode. And it works. Routine storytelling, horrid dialogue, but it works. And well.

My God, that's the fastest in your whole life you went from WANTING to know what the hell happened, to NOT wanting to know. Isn't it?

Friends, I must report that I have surrendered all hope for another Goonies film.
And, in truth, I cannot explain why I was still holding out any hope, or why I know too well that I would ride a bicycle five miles on a flat tire in the rain to see one, beyond a gesture in the direction of I Loved The Goonies So Much As A Kid.
But, boy, did I ever. I had dreams about it. The first day I had it on VHS, I watched it three times, and then cursed not being able to make it four.
A few days ago, the Blu-Ray disc arrived, the near-contraband UK one you can only get from one seller on Amazon, and is mercifully region free. I was hesitant to play it, knowing I would be, at long last, seeing it in something approaching a quality it had not had since the meager two times I had seen it in the theater, twenty-four years ago.
Would it remind me of that? Would I have a memory flood of myself in the old single-screen R&M theater in my hometown in Arizona, munching popcorn and staring up at the gang as they ran like hell from the falling-boulder trap, the walls rumbling in stereo as the stones thundered down?
As it turned out, yes. That old feeling did come back. However, I also saw it as the 36-year-old with an exhausting job and obligations who I am now. And I saw it as it is. And what it is, fans, is two things: a classic, beloved movie, for the big reason a movie becomes classic and beloved, which is that it, to its fans, it has actually ceased to be a movie and become a place you love to go for a few hours every once in a while.
And good thing, too. At least in this case. Because the Goonies, as a movie, is an acquired taste. It is a deafening, chainsaw-edited jumble of scenes, not one of which is even faintly plausible, and many of which play as if the set builders and the cameraman showed up to do their finest work that day, and everyone else thought they were there for a Twister tournament.
Nevertheless, like all wannabe Goonies, I have prayed that a worthy sequel would take shape one day. But as is now painfully clear, there won’t be one, or a reboot, not for years, maybe ever. The reasons why, admittedly, are speculative, as I am not in the industry, but I am confident of them even so. Thus:
The people involved just don’t want to make it. Cut. Print. There it is. Sorry ‘bout yer luck.
But for the who and why, let’s start in the obvious place.
Spielberg isn’t interested in doing it. Because, really, why do a sequel to, or remake of, a film that was basically a collection of cinematically fortunate spare parts to start with? The first rule of a cult classic is that the filmmakers themselves must have no idea that it will be one, and this was never truer than of this movie: a cast of leftover Sixteen Candles characters (with a few clever additions), a plot assembled from unused Indiana Jones set pieces, and a summer-movie budget, all stewed up by its creative hands into something that, somehow, was magical onscreen. But my honest guess is that Mr. Spielberg sees it through his own eyes, not those of his fans. But, moving on:
Donner isn’t interested in doing it. Firstly, because at his current career level, he has no interest in doing another movie with Spielberg looking over his shoulder. He is not a “sub-director” like Irvin Kershner or Joe Johnston or James McTeigue. Or at least, not anymore. And Spielberg would need someone else with proven talent and the ability to turn in footage with a kid’s sensibilities and an action director’s eye. And to fill that bill, the most obvious candidate you can think of is…uh…well…
Ahem. Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, because Donner knows full well it would be impossible to replicate the experience he had on the first film, which he called the happiest experience of his life.
Which brings us to…
The cast isn’t interested in doing it.
Sean Astin’s hopeful hinting and Corey Feldman’s wails for career resuscitation notwithstanding, pretty much everyone in the cast has vibed about as clearly as they can that they have little interest in reprising their characters. (http://www.variety.com/article/VR1117994074.html) Perhaps for obvious reasons. How could they have much more than walk-on parts, after all? A Goonies movie--all dreaming aside--would have to have a bunch of kids front and center.
And, finally, the studio isn’t interested in doing it.
Mainly because Donner and Spielberg can’t get their hands on an idea solid enough to impress them. In truth, It may simply be that finding a plausible way to reassemble the gang for another adventure is far more slippery than it sounds. And even if they could, they’d end up with the risk of a $100M movie that no one but the core fans might go to see.
What is certain, on the other hand, is that pulling a Lost Boys 2, and making it for the price of a used prophylactic with no one returning from the original except Feldman wearing an ancient, shredded Purple Rain t-shirt and a manic I’ve-seen-stuff expression, and crapping it out straight to DVD, really isn’t an option, thank God. Spielberg has at least enough integrity and pull to disallow that.
To put a point on it, friends, I’ve been reading the news along with you through every "yes, definitely'" and "oh, sorry" and "It just didn't call for it" regarding a sequel the last few years, and to me, it has all stunk like a low-bid outhouse of the same thing--no motivation. A cast who would feel silly, and avoids it by simply pricing themselves out of contention (if the Cartoon Network thing is any clue), a director who isn’t interested in reliving the past, and a producer who has too many other things on his plate.
There’s just no arguing with it--In a time when they’re pulling crappy decades-old anime off the shelf and remaking it with leviathan budgets, you know damn well that if Spielberg, Donner and the gang got serious about a wanting a sequel, they’d announce one in a month.
So there you have it, fellow G‘s. Put the fire out, cut bait, break camp, move on. The great fan fiction, gnarly art, and thriving online communities will last for as long as we choose. “The Goonies” may be dead to the people who made it. It does not have to ever be dead to you.