Fearing a remake of The Artist and wondering whether Meryl Streep could take Robert Downey Jr in a fight.
I’m brainstorming crazy stuff that Tom Cruise might jump off. For a movie. Obviously. Why? Well, you can bet somebody, somewhere, with a lot more power and influence than me is doing just that. Maybe I can think of something truly awesome and sell it to them. After all, Cruise is pretty dedicated to Doing All His Own Stunts No Matter How Crazy They Seem. Maybe I can shoehorn bungee ropes and the Russian Mafia into the equation – everyone needs a villain.
I’m actually trying to distract myself from another depressing possibility – the seemingly inevitable remake of The Artist. That’s crazy? Oh is it? Really? I fear there’s a rumour drifting through the shadowy corridors of some of the major studios’ development departments that a remake of The Artist is, in fact, A Good Idea, and that scares me. There’s bound to be someone who reckons the French shot a movie that everyone loves but nobody noticed they forgot to film in colour and switch on their microphone.
I can see it now. The frenzied late-night phone call to the jobbing screenwriter who just wants to catch a break as he types into the night on his precious Mac Book Air, brushing mice from his writing desk with a moth-eaten slipper. Yeah, it’s a great idea, the studio executives will purr down the phone, their soothing voices promising the screenwriter his Big Break. We’ll remake The Artist in colour, film it in English and spend a bit of dough on a period setting. Get Clint Eastwood to direct. He loves that kind of thing. Oscar Gold… Trying to point out, well, the point of The Artist, the screenwriter becomes the lone voice in a room full of single-minded development executives.
At which point the nightmare grows worse. It’s the perfect time to suggest to the jobbing screenwriter that Marvel fans don’t like The Iron Lady. Well, that’s not entirely unexpected, you might think. There’s a distinct lack of spandex and super-heroism going on there, and rather a lot of showy Oscar-worthiness and Meryl Streep with big hair.
Suddenly I have a powerful image in my head of Robert Downey Jr looming over Meryl ‘Iron Lady’ Streep in his sculpted metal suit, smirking as she cowers behind her Maggie Thatcher handbag and bouffant hairdo.
But some of the less clued-in studio executives start whispering of a crossover feature – The Iron Lady versus Iron Man. The industry buzz will be that apparently Marvel has botched its Iron Lady origin story and made it light on the kind of action needed to pull in the kids. They’ve set it in her apartment? Where she sees ghosts? And she runs the Government in 1980s Britain? Well, maybe we can do something with the ghost thing…
“…Maggie Thatcher! The fearless leader with a mechanised war machine that defended the Fork Lands from the tyranny of the Argents, a primitive, cave-dwelling race that worships false idols made of silver. And there are ghosts, maybe. Watch Iron Man stomp in stage left and bring on the smack down…!”
It’ll be a plotline hastily recited to an impatient studio boss by an over-imaginative and under-experienced intern fearing for her job and feeling vulnerable after her most recent break-up. Have a go at that script and you’ve got an arrogant, if disarmingly charming billionaire in a metal suit laying the smack down on a frail and confused octogenarian who sees ghosts in her flat.
Suddenly I have a powerful image in my head of Robert Downey Jr looming over Meryl ‘Iron Lady’ Streep in his sculpted metal suit, smirking as she cowers behind her Maggie Thatcher handbag and bouffant hairdo. He glances at Pepper Potts, incredulous: “The miners want me to do what to her??”
But that’ll never happen. I’m being a hopeless pessimist. Right? It’s no good – I need my distraction. Should Tom Cruise jump off Seattle’s Space Needle while being shot at by a goon in a micro-light with a mini-gun? Are they looking for a spec script for Mission: Impossible – Retirement Doctrine? I have a long night ahead…
