The Bad Boys of SNL (with King of Queens replacing Chris Farley as the fat one) are having so much fun wearing shirts on a water slide! I bet that’s similar to the sort of fun I’d have watching Grown Ups ! Conclusion: I should probably go to the theater on June 25. ‘Grown Ups’ Poster [IMPA]

Evidence that the Random Foreign Film of the Month Club subscription you bought him for Christmas 2005 is still good, Chris Rock has announced he’ll be writing and producing a remake of last year’s French comedy La premiere etoile ( The First Star ). Rock previously wrote and directed a remake of L’amour l’après-midi ( I Think I Love My Wife , a film that would kill the original director when he finally rented it three years later ), and recently produced and starred in a remake of the UK comedy Death at a Funeral , so he’s no stranger to needlessly reinterpreting things. With him at the reigns, I have the feeling this will be just as “I suppose this is decent, but why not just watch the superior original?” as last time he translated a film into American English!

Did you see Frank Oz’s 2007 British dark comedy Death at a Funeral and think, “Pretty funny, but why isn’t the cast completely replaced with an American, largely-black cast–save for Peter Dinklage, who, in the absence of a better small performer, should still play Peter Dinklage’s character? Then this one’s for you, crazy person:

After watching this trailer for the new Adam Sandler , Chris Rock , Rob Schneider and David Spade movie Grown Ups , I am strangely getting pretty psyched to see Old Dogs : Wow. I feel like I’m missing something here. Is this a pitch perfect mockery of everything bad about Hollywood comedies? I know every one one of these actors has been in a terrible movie or two before, but there’s no way they’d join forces and make movie with a hacky title like Grown Ups , right? Between the Disney narration to that shot of “the guys” laughing and drinking wine in a cemetary to Kevin James hitting that tree, someone at some point HAD to have said something along the lines of, “We’ll show those jerks on the internet how you make a fake cheesy movie trailer!” These guys are professional comedians. They don’t actually expect us to believe this movie would be a good way to spend two hours and $13… right? To Chris Rock’s credit, he looks pretty embarrassed to be involved at all. Also, I’m guessing they passed on these titles: Adults Older People Middle Aged Family Men Growin’ Old Mature Human Beings The Untitled Adam Sandler Project He’s Contractually Obligated To Make But Not Contractually Obligated To Put An Ounce Of Original Thought In To Via Dan: When Will Dude From Grandma’s Boy Show Up

The trailer for the childhood-friends-reunite-as-adults film Grown-Ups is here. Watching it, I have to think this will probably be a new generation’s The Big Chill . Except no it won’t, because The Big Chill was college friends, and it never included gags where Jeff Goldblum swings into a tree and comically rolls down a hill. Maybe it’s a new generation’s Now and Then , without any of the flashback scenes? Or maybe it’s just The Bad Boys of SNL Reunite as Dads, and Also King of Queens Is Here Instead of Chris Farley (RIP) :

Oprah thinks the struggle for a white person to form a relationship with a black person is hysterical! (She can’t fathom it, because all races and species love Oprah equally.) The talk show host’s Harpo Films has acquired the movie rights to Will You Be My Black Friend , a year-old GQ article about a white guy trying to make a black friend, and is somehow making it a “star vehicle” for Chris Rock even though it’s about a white person. The Daily Variety says: The article, a humorous account by senior correspondent Devin Friedman about his clumsy attempt to make friends with people of color, will be developed as a star vehicle for Chris Rock. Following a cocktail party epiphany that his entire social circle is the same color as he, the white writer made an unabashed attempt to make black friends, down to soliciting prospective pals in a Craigslist ad. The journo discovers that race aside, it is very difficult to make meaningful friends later in life. Come on. We already have last season of Curb Your Enthusiasm , Black People Love Us , that episode of Seinfeld where George takes a black exterminator out to dinner, and Hitch . Can’t we move on to white people befriending other races? Inuits? How about Inuits? No one is touching Inuits. Let’s see a white person try to befriend an Inuit. As a whitey, I wouldn’t even know where to start. Alaska?

Yesterday’s New York Times featured a rather flattering profile on Screen Gems president Clinton Culpepper and how his Sony studio arm reliably turns a profit on its comedy and thriller titles. Despite Culpepper declining to be interviewed for the piece, it goes noted amidst “past and present associates” that the man has a preference for “the white comedy, done black,” a supposed genre brought up with regards to Chris Rock’s forthcoming remake of Death at a Funeral with an all African-American cast. The minority-cast likes of You Got Served , Stomp the Yard and This Christmas have certainly proven profitable for Screen Gems, but do any of you out there refuse to see Funeral or The Big Chill , and yet may fork money over if those films were done with a more superficially familiar ensemble? Or do you personally wish for more out of niche filmmaking meant to appeal to the African-American audience than the wacky antics of Martin Lawrence and Madea? And with regards to this Friday’s Obsessed , is there a double standard with regards to a white woman (Ali Larter) interfering with the happiness of a black couple (Idris Elba and Beyonce Knowles)? If the roles were reversed (and if the alleged working title of Oh No She Didn’t were kept instead), would everyone be up in arms about stereotyping and such? On the flip side, would anyone argue that having a white villainess is maybe being too politically correct? Let us know. Filed under: Drama , Thrillers , Casting , Sony Permalink | Email this | Comments

Chris Rock has astutely noticed that Frank Oz’s 2007 comedy Death at a Funeral was not made this year and does not take place in an urban American setting, and he’s out to fix that (via A.V. Club ): Chris Rock is set to star and co-write “Death at a Funeral,” a re-imagining of the 2007 comedy, for Screen Gems and Sidney Kimmel Entertainment. Aeysha Carr will write the script with Rock for a comedy inspired by the SKE-produced original, which was written by Dean Craig and directed by Frank Oz. Plan is for an ensemble comedy about a funeral ceremony that leads to the digging up of shocking family secrets, as well as misplaced cadavers and indecent exposure. While the original was set in Britain, the new film will take place in an urban American setting. How closely the Hollywood model resembles the format of my friends and I wasting most of a night playing old Mega Man games. As soon as one guy finishes their attempt, someone else is already swatting at the controls claiming they can do better, only to usually fare much worse. The main difference is that, when Hollywood does it, the result is too often a two-hour waste of time; with us, it’s still a wasted two hours, but at least we finally end the tyranny of Gemini Man. (Thanks, Will.) Chris Rock rolls with ‘Funeral’ [Variety]

Back in January, we all recoiled a little bit at the news that Neil LaBute was remaking Death at a Funeral — a nice little British movie that only just came out in 2007, making a remake seem even more superfluous than they usually are. The fact that he was making it with Chris Rock made the whole thing seem even more cheesy. (Not that we don’t like Rock … it’s just that we like him in original, edgy stuff.) Well, the remake just got a lot more over the top. The Hollywood Reporter has announced that Martin Lawrence and Tracy Morgan have joined, along with Loretta Devine, Ron Glass, Danny Glover, Regina Hall, James Marsden, Zoe Saldana and Columbus Short. (Who wants to bet money that Marsden is the gay lover? Anyone? Anyone?) It’s keeping the exact same plot of misplaced cadavers, gay blackmail, hallucinogenic drugs, and family secrets, though Rock cowrote the script with Ayesha Carr, so we can expect some changes. It’s just not clear yet what they might be … but at least it probably won’t involve bear suits or misogyny. I’m still not convinced this needed to be remade, but I suppose if you’re going to do one, it ought to feature Danny Glover . Let’s just hope Tyler Perry stays a million miles away from the set. ETA: Yes, the title originally read Tracy Jordan. I watch way too much 30 Rock. Filed under: Comedy , Gay & Lesbian , Casting , MGM , Scripts , Newsstand , Remakes and Sequels Permalink | Email this | Comments

This can’t go well: Kevin James, Chris Rock, Adam Sandler, Rob Schneider and David Spade are in negotiations to star in an untitled comedy for Columbia Pictures. Frequent Sandler collaborator Dennis Dugan (”You Don’t Mess With the Zohan”) will helm, with the studio gearing up for a summer start date. Sandler’s Sony-based Happy Madison shingle, which recently teamed with James and the studio on the box office hit “Paul Blart: Mall Cop,” is producing. Sandler penned the screenplay with “Dickie Roberts: Former Child Star” scribe Fred Wolf. High-concept story is a comedy about five best friends from high school who reunite 30 years later on a Fourth of July weekend. So what they’re getting at is that this is a movie about SNL, but instead of calling it “a popular, weekly sketch comedy program” they’re calling it “high school”, and instead of Chris Farley it’s Kevin James. I can’t quite figure out what the reuniting on “Fourth of July weekend” part represents. Maybe a declaration of independence from genuine laughter? Columbia pic gets Sandler and friends [Variety]