After nearly two years of stalling, the Red Dawn remake has finally found a distributor willing to take on this film, after MGM emerged from bankruptcy in 2009 and deciding not to release it. FilmDistrict, an independent studio, is finalizing a deal with Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
Earlier this year, the film went through a villain change as the creators digitally changed the bad guys to be North Koreans instead of Chinese. The most obvious reason is that they wish to capitalize on the Chinese market for international distribution and that’s not going to happen if you piss off the world’s most populated country and a superpower in their own right.
At this point right now, the remake has been delayed for so long that I’m actually curious to see the darn thing and judge for myself how the film is going to turn out. (I know Koji will be with me on this one). A good part of me is going to place a bet that it’ll be straight DVD quality and we can all forget about this as soon as it comes out. But with the success of Thor, the remake may actually have a good chance of garnering financial success with one of their main actors being Chris Hemsworth, who filmed the Red Dawn remake when he was not nearly as known.
The film is also expected to gain some extra attention with two other actors.
“Adrienne Palicki, who starred in the failed Wonder Woman TV series and is also in the upcoming G.I. Joe sequel, and Josh Hutcherson, who is starring in the highly-anticipated teen action/drama The Hunger Games, are two other Red Dawn cast members who have seen their stars rise in Hollywood over the last two years.”
While I am concerned that they are only going to show non-Asians as being the “good guys,” a small part of me is excited by the casting of Kenneth Choi (who was last seen in Captain America as Japanese American good guy soldier Jim Morita) who is playing a character by the name of “Smith.” By Hollywood standards, anyone who is fighting a non-American enemy would have American names for the good guys, right…right?
The Red Dawn remake will be expected to come out by early 2012. Let the xenophobia invasion begin?
