So, here's where we're at this week. An absurdly corny and endlessly overpraised ‘80s flick will soon make even more money, one of the best action films of all time is pointlessly being remade, and oh yeah, Tyler Perry is the highest paid man working in the entertainment industry. The entire entertainment industry.
Tyler Perry – Highest Paid Male Entertainer
According to Forbes’ annual list of the highest paid entertainers per year, Tyler Perry killed the competition, netting $130 million from May 2010-May 2011, far surpassing second place Jerry Bruckheimer’s $113 million take.
How this was done isn’t of issue. Perry makes a lot of movies. They cost next to nothing and make shitloads. The fact that his films are horrible matters little to the demographic they target. Essentially, he’s tapping an untapped market, which he’ll continue to do with the movie he just wrapped and the two TV shows he created.
Perry has a flawless work ethic, no question. I just wish his work was based more on quality than quantity. I’ve never seen anything good with his name attached to it (with the exception of Precious, of course, a film Perry invested no creative input into.) But the fact that a far more prominent black director can’t even get a sequel to his most successful film financed, and Perry can release crap like this, well, it’s just damn disheartening.
Ride Into the Danger Zone (in 3D!)
I don’t like Top Gun. Never have, never will. I’d probably enjoy it if most males ages 18-45 didn’t consider it the greatest movie of all time, and quote it incessantly, night after night, beer after beer. (I do, however, appreciate the fact that director Tony Scott was able to make fun of the film, via a brilliant tirade in another one of his movies).
Regardless of how you feel about Maverick and Co., Top Gun has aged badly. The music, the acting, the clothes, the hair – it’s all so… ‘80s. (Bad ‘80s, not good ‘80s.) But guys desperately attempting to clutch onto any homoerotic nostalgia leftover from their youth will surely fork out $14+ to see Top Gun in 3D. At least that’s what Paramount is banking on, as Top Gun 3D will flying by theaters early next year.
Can’t you think of 10 far more worthy 3D conversion treatments? Me, I’d like to see Jake LaMotta throwing seven left hooks in the third dimension, or John McClane jumping off a building, out of the screen, into my popcorn. For better or worse, if Top Gun 3D is successful, you can expect much more of this behavior.
That Would Be… a Waste of Time
When news broke that Alcon was considering remaking Point Break, I wasn’t mad, I wasn’t upset, I was goddamn offended. Loyal readers may be familiar with my admiration for Point Break. It’s the perfect action film, one that you can have just as much fun laughing with as you can laughing at. I simply do not understand what a Point Break remake can lend to… anything. Footloose will soon be butchered and The Thing looks utterly dismal, so why spend time and money making something that fans and Bodhi newbies alike will undoubtedly detest?
It won’t be surfing, it’ll be extreme water sports. It won’t be two FBI agents, it’ll be guys in suits standing in darkly-lit war rooms, studying information on a lot of very large monitors. And it won’t be The Swayz, it’ll be some cheap knock off doing his best Swayz impression, which will just be insulting.
I’m not a religious man, but I pray this remake gets cast out into the vast Australian sea, never to come back again.
The Good News
Dustin Hoffman is set to direct his first flick. Cameron Crowe’s new movie looks better than his previous feature (although, most movies do). And our favorite Bad Motherfucker just got cast in a role that will undoubtedly reaffirm is status as America’s most sincerely badass actor.