Weekly Round Up: Final Destination, Anne Hathaway, Christopher McQuarrie

21st January 2019

The original Final Destination is a personal favourite of mine. Personally, I think it injected some much-needed genuine fear into the slasher sub-genre and, while the ensuing franchise failed to capitalise on the promise of the original, it remains an interesting, fun and frightening entry into the horror pantheon that, at the time, was overrun with slick, stylish but ultimately dull and predictable teen movies.

This week’s news that New Line Cinema are planning to reboot the franchise with Saw writers Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan writing the script fills me with trepidation. On the one hand I’d love to see a fantastic premise given another go around, and the original Final Destination was arguably way ahead of its time, on the other the Saw films struggled to maintain any sense of… well, quality beyond the first and maybe second. So, I guess we’ll have to see.

Either way, it seems that breathing life into projects long thought dead is the flavour of the week, as we also learned this week that the long-rumoured Ghostbusters 3 is actually entering production with the release of a teaser trailer announcing the news rather suddenly.

The 2016 reboot starring Melissa McCarthy, Kristen Wiig, Kate McKinnon and Leslie Jones was a hit with critics but not so much with fans. It drew controversy for its all-female cast and the announcement that Sony are now ditching the newly established reboot timeline in favour of a sequel to the original continuity is sure to kick-start more questions about sexism in Hollywood.

For what it’s worth, my opinion is; there’s sexism in Hollywood, and that’s bad. The Ghostbusters reboot could have been good, but it wasn’t. It was terrible. Not because it had women in it, but because it was lazy, dumb comedy that played to the broadest crowd and failed to match the clever wit and dry humour of the original.

Anyway, the sequel will reportedly be helmed by none other than Jason Reitman, the director behind Juno, Up in the Air and Tully, who also happens to be the son of original Ghostbusters director Ivan Reitman. The film will reportedly feature a “passing of the torch” narrative, starring the teen children of the original troupe who must face off against some unknown supernatural threat.

Speaking of unknow supernatural threats, Robert Zemeckis’ The Witches reboot, an adaptation of the Roald Dahl children’s classic and remake of the 1990 film starring Angelica Huston, had a rather interesting casting announcement this week.

Taking on the role of Grand High Witch, the role played so brilliantly by Huston in the original, is none other than Anne Hathaway.

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this project. The Witches remains one of my favourites of Dahl’s children’s books, and the film adaptation was on constant rotation in my house growing up. For me Huston is the definitive Grand High Witch, and Zemeckis hasn’t exactly been on top form recently. What’s more, the recent output of Dahl adaptations (both Burton’s Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Spielberg’s The BFG) have failed to live up to their potential. However, I do think Anne Hathaway is great, so I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

Proof that Hollywood is well and truly out of ideas comes in the form of the Monopoly movie… that’s right, a movie based on the board game Monopoly.

The idea of a film adaptation based on the iconic game has, inexplicably, been kicking around Hollywood for years (indeed Ridley Scott was once attached to direct). But this version seems to be a departure from the idea originally conceived, with comedian Kevin Hart signing on to star in the film and Tim Story, director of Hart vehicle Ride Along and those two Fantastic Four movies featuring Jessica Alba, signing on to direct.

At this point I just shrug and go “Yeah, sure. Whatever” because, honestly, a Monopoly movie…? A freaking Monopoly movie…? What’s next? The film adaptation of bread?

Perhaps the only news this week that doesn’t leave me wanting to fall to my knees and scream like Charlton Heston is that writer/director Christopher McQuarrie, the man behind the last two Mission: Impossible movies, has just signed on to direct the next two instalments of the Tom Cruise starring franchise, and what’s more they’ll be shot back-to-back.

Honestly, this is spectacular. Mission: Impossible has become, unexpectedly so, the best action movie franchise of the current era, and that’s in no small part down to McQuarrie’s involvement. I’m very much excited to see where they take this and what crazy stunts McQuarrie and Cruise have up their sleeves.

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