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Tom Shadyac – Say Quoi?

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 Tom Shadyac photo courtesy Pepperdine Magazine


Tom Shadyac
photo courtesy Pepperdine Magazine

 

On Real Time with Bill Maher Overtime last Friday, guest film director Tom Shadyac confirmed that he will be directing the American remake of The Intouchables.  

This is not really news as it’s been reported that he’s been “in talks” for the movie since February.

What is newsworthy is what he said:

 “It’s a remake of the French film The Intouchables.  It was the most popular film in France over the last couple of years.  No one in the English-speaking language countries (sic) saw it so we’re going to remake it here.”

Ah bon?

No one saw the movie that displaced Amélie as the most successful French movie in history shown outside of France?

No one saw the movie that has become the highest-grossing non-English movie in history whose worldwide gross of $281 million will not be its final tally?

No one in the English-speaking United States saw the movie that was held over for weeks in theaters, long past its scheduled bookings?

I’m not a fan of French films being Americanized.  There was a dismal period in the 1980s and 1990s where French movies were remade before the original had a chance to be seen.  The resulting movie was almost always a distortion, to put it kindly, of the original, even if it enjoyed box office success.

I concede this is not the case here.  The Intouchables was seen.

There’s even a chance that this movie could be an improvement on the original as was the case with The Big Wedding. That movie was exceptional with a novice director, Justin Zackham; the odds are even better with Shadyac who has an established, successful comedic track record.  Additionally, Shadyac’s disclosure that his mother was a quadriplegic may provide a sensitivity that one would not expect from the director of Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.

What seems to be left over from that dismal period is the flawed and condescending assumption that Americans don’t see foreign language movies, as Shadyac’s comments illuminate.  As an admirer of his personal transformation documented in I Am, I was surprised and disappointed that he would have such outdated thinking.

So, Mr. Shadyac, please do right by Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano, the original movie’s directors, and make your boss, Harvey Weinstein, beaucoup bucks.  

The post Tom Shadyac – Say Quoi? appeared first on Le Movie Snob.


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