Since he first hit it big in 2003 with "The OC," Josh Schwartz has been busy making TV gold. He is the (co-)mastermind behind the sinful "Gossip Girl" and wonderfully nerdy "Chuck," and is responsible for making the careers of current young hotties Blake Lively, Chace Crawford, Rachel Bilson and Zachary Levi. And Mischa Barton for a brief stint of time before she pissed him off so much he killed her off "The OC" (even better: Cam Gigandet did the deed!).
Well, now Josh is trying to expand his horizons to the film industry. He is already set to remake the 80s flop "Bright Lights, Big City," but now New York Magazine's Vulture blog scooped that he is set to remake another 80s bomb. According to the Vulture, Josh is going to take a stab at the 1981 Franco Zeffirelli film, "Endless Love."
While the folks at NY Mag were unable to contact Josh for comment, they were able to speak with the man who penned the source novel, Scott Spencer. His first comment about the remake scenario: "It almost seems as though Josh is trying to undo the mistakes of the early and mid-eighties."
That would be quite the accomplishment, but we think Josh has smaller goals in mind, which mainly seems to be to make the film properly. "Endless Love" sells right to Josh's forte: teen angst and smoldering passion. "Chuck" being his geeky sidenote, "The OC" and "Gossip Girl" are anything or not angst-ridden and smoldering.
The novel/film tells the story of Jade Butterworth, a "smoldering sexpot so hotly desired by her 17-year-old lover that, after being prevented from seeing her, he burns down her family's home in an effort to reinsert himself into their lives," NY Mag reports. Apparently the 1981 film — starring a 14-year-old Brooke Shields — skipped the sensuality and chose to beat the audience over the head with the fact this is not how you want your child to act.
"Their mistake was making it a 'cautionary tale,'" Scott said. "In the posters, the tagline was 'The love every parent fears,' but in the novel, it really was more, 'The love every parent envies.' They also hired a director of Italian operas to make it, so any nuances of social or cultural observation went out the window. The result was a teenage make-out movie that was too tasteful: People who loved the book were furious; people who came to be turned on got lectured. Everybody went home dissatisfied."
Josh definitely understands and deftly manipulates the "nuances of social or culture observations" in today's world, so we have hope that this film could end up turning out much better than the original. Hopefully it doesn't cause a shift in trends towards remaking old crappy movies instead of old classic ones, though. Hasn't anyone in Hollywood ever heard of original projects anymore?
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