From the Files of: “Everything Old is New Again”
Because Millennial and Generation Z audiences haven’t been taught history in school, they get the opportunity to learn it from films. So, with that in mind, news has broken about David Ayer’s next project.
From the trades:
Warner Bros has set David Ayer to write and direct a contemporized remake of the action classic The Dirty Dozen. Ayer will take the men on a mission story and inject his own voice into the mix. It will be contemporary with a multi-cultural diverse cast. It is in Ayer’s wheelhouse in that it harkens back to the spirit of some of his earlier scripts, including the first The Fast and the Furious, and Training Day.
Yes, the story will be multicultural, set in Iraq/Afghanistan and will probably feature some heavy-duty subtext about the Bad Orange Man.
Let’s Give Him a Chance, He Handled Suicide Squad…
Lest we forget the premise of the actual original film, from the trades yet again:
The original 1967 war film was directed by Robert Aldrich and featured a cast that included Ernest Borgnine, Charles Bronson, Jim Brown, John Cassavetes, Robert Ryan, Telly Savalas, Robert Webber and Donald Sutherland. Pic was based on the E.M. Nathanson novel that was inspired by a real group called the Filthy Thirteen. The film involved a top-secret mission done before the Normandy Invasion, where a group of hardened Army prisoners were trained to conduct a suicide mission, to stage an assault on a chateau in Brittany where dozens of high ranking German officers are meeting. The hope is that eliminating the leaders will help with the pending D-Day invasion. Those who survive are offered pardons.
Ayer’s handled Suicide Squad, which was about a bunch of multicultural misfits, and that launched the career of Margot Robbie and directed Fury and End of Watch, so I’m sure that the updated premise with no “good” war in the public consciousness to back it up, will be executed without a hitch by Ayer’s.
What Are We To Make of All of This?
Well, Warner Bros. is really pulling out all of the stops with throwing Ayer’s at this as they also have a rebooting of The Wild Bunch—that Sam Peckinpaw classic—being helmed by Mel Gibson.
The proof of the strength of Ayer’s concept–written and directed by a person who served in the United States Navy as a submariner–will be in the first trailer, as Warner is fast-tracking this film for a 2021 release.
