Hollywood has been trying to get one off the ground since 2010
"Touchdoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooown Auburn"
Hopefully, never.
Matt, Kitty, Doc, Chester, and Festus aren't merely iconic -- they're marmoreal.
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That would be the only positive. They just don't have any actors of the stature of the originals these days. You can't go home again.
I could be a morning person if morning happened at noon.
I disagree. There are plenty of fine actors around. (Paul Dano would make an interesting Chester.) The general quality of actors has risen a lot over the last half-century.
The problem is one of iconography. You'd have to have an incredibly good script and exceptional casting to even begin to get viewers to accept anyone new in these roles. As I said in another post, Arness, Blake, Stone, and Weaver/Curtis are not merely iconic, but marmoreal.
I agree; I've lately gotten into old movies and TV, and find the acting generally inferior to what we see today. Which makes sense, as it took awhile for actors to learn to replace traditional skills from the theatrical stage with finer nuance and subtlety.
BTW, I'm a huge fan of your Gunsmoke reviews. It adds so much to read your political/historical commentary after an episode, and I find it dead on.
Oh, and thanks for turning me onto the word "marmoreal!" Now on alert looking for a chance to spring it on someone...
A guy at work told me he planned to retire after 35 years. I said, "You can't go, you're marmoreal!" He stared at me for several seconds before he replied: "I do NOT wear a toupee."
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?
I very much appreciate your compliment. Of course, it doesn't matter whether a critic is "correct", but whether they offer something that provokes thought.
If you can't find someone to spring "marmoreal" on, you might try toppling it over on them.
I see what you did there.
shareI don't think that a film would be very good. The only way that I have ever thought that Gunsmoke could be rebooted was by a series of two-hour movies back in the days when TNT was producing really good westerns. Now, the only way that I think it could be done is as a Netflix or Amazon series. It has to be series. Gunsmoke was not so much about the regular characters. It was about those characters in stories around them. It would have to be a series.
Fred
I grew up watching (in first run) George Reeves play Superman. I had no trouble accepting Christopher Reeve, as he was perfectly cast in a part that's all-but impossible to cast correctly. Henry Cavil isn't badly cast, but his ultimate acceptance depends on how appropriately the part is written in future films.
I'm at a loss to think of anyone who could convincingly impersonate Matt Dillon. * One of the "right" things about James Arness is his height and solid build. He threatens people simply by his presence, which works very well with a laconic character who takes his job so seriously. (He's hardly ever overpowered or beaten up, and when he is, it's embarrassing.)
The TV actors inhabited their characters for two decades. You don't have to watch more than one episode for them to be permanently burned in your consciousness. I don't see how putting emphasis on the "guest" characters (which, to a greater or lesser degree, was always true of the series) ** can deflect attention from the fact that viewers will say "That ain't Matt", "That ain't Kitty", "That ain't Doc", "That ain't Chester". ***
Besides, we've had a recent series starring Matt Dillon... Justified. I might... just might... accept Timothy Olyphant as Marshal Dillon.
* Matt Dillon is, of course, out of the question.
** No more than about a quarter of the episodes focus strongly on one or more of the principals. (That's a guess, and probably wrong.)
*** No actor in his right mind would try to duplicate Festus.
"The general quality of actors has risen a lot over the last half-century."
Absolute ridiculous nonsense.
The quality of actors has most definitely not risen a lot over the last half-century. What we've seen since the early 1950s is the rise of a lot of hammy method posturing and histrionics. Very high levels of both technical skill and naturalism in acting were already well established in the sound movies of the 1930s. On the best days of their careers, Brando and De Niro couldn't have played Matt Dillon with the realism and believability James Arness brought to the role. James Dean would've just mumbled, fallen on the floor, and cried.
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for shts and giggles:
Matt Dillon: Jefferey Dean Morgan
Kitty Russell: Charlize Theron
Festus: Stephen McHattie
Chester: Jeremy Davies
Doc: JK Simmons
"Anybody who doesn't wanna hang, step out and get shot!"
Doc: J K Simmons
Giggles, indeed. Simmons often plays characters who are, shall we say, lacking in warmth.
It's not so much a matter of casting (as important as that is -- how about Tom Skerritt as Doc Adams?) -- but the story.
What's the driving conflict? The best conflicts are usually internal -- the protagonist's fight with himself.
How about Matt recognizing that he's a lawman because he's suicidal. This, in turn, keeps him from developing close relationships with anyone.
Now you have a story that can be told in two hours, with a (potentially) satisfying ending.
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Marshal Matt Dillon=David James Elliott
Miss Kitty=Jodie Foster (runner-up=Julianne Moore)
Doc Adams=Jack Nicholson
Chester Goode=Robert Knepper
Quint Asper=Dwayne Johnson
Festus Haggen=Josh Holloway
Villain=Hank Williams, Jr.
Directed by Kevin Costner
Annoying the world since 1960!
Not gonna happen. The movie business is all about attracting young audiences. The Gunsmoke brand has no equity with anyone under 45.
shareThen why remake other older projects? Some tanked, some did well.
Annoying the world since 1960!
I don't think 18-34 year old movie goers are interested in Westerns enough for any studio to drop buckets of cash into. Even if it was made on a shoestring budget, it would be lucky to break even. For me, any remake of the Classics, (like Gunsmoke), just wouldn't be able to bypass my deeply entrenched images of the characters in my noggin - when I read your suggestions for the casting, for example, I just couldn't picture any of them in Dodge! (no offence to your choices!) I can't visualize ANYBODY stepping into the original casts' boots, methinks I'm just an old stick in the mud - never been much of a fan of remakes of any tv shows or movies that I've grown up with
If you're drinking to forget, please pay in advance
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no, I haven't, I'll have to keep an eye out, thanks for the tip! I've been spending a lot of time watching TCM the last couple of years - I get such a melancholy, nostalgic feeling for the days when the writing, and the musical scoring could make a good film great - when actors actually interacted with each other, and not to a tennis ball hanging from the rafters with string, YIKES, I'd better stop now, I could go on for a very long time on this topic...
I arranged a threesome once - there were a couple of no shows, but I still had a good time
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ah, mon cher ami Ron! merci beaucoup, tu et le plus gentil et attentionné - jusqu'à demain!! 😸
I arranged a threesome once - there were a couple of no shows, but I still had a good time!
Do you two need to be alone?
Annoying the world since 1960!
thanks, no, we're good!
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I'd love to "répondre", mon cher Ty........but I don't want to make Tresix jealous
(read my bio, Tresix, I think I'm hilarious)
I arranged a threesome once - there were a couple of no shows, but I still had a good time!
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They seemed to have deleted your partner's responses. I hate when they do that it seems as if you're talking to yourself.
Anyway, to get back on subject, I think I just came up with a good idea of how to do this movie: It would start out in the early 20TH Century. There are news reports that legendary Wild West lawman, Matt Dillon, is on his deathbed. We go to the deathbed and Dillon is played by Clint Eastwood. A reporter comes in and asks Matt if he wants to talk about some things and Matt begins telling of how he arrived in Dodge City. We get a flashback and the young Matt is played by Scott Eastwood. We see how he meets Miss Kitty, Chester, Festus. Doc, I would imagine, would have been and old friend and he might have arrived in town either before or after Matt's arrival. There could be a few small adventures culminating in one big one for the climax.
How does that sound?
Annoying the world since 1960!
Matt Dillon was clearly a social liberal. As far as the law was concerned, he was "law and order". Clint Eastwood carries such a confused load of baggage in these areas that (for this viewer, anyway), I'd have trouble accepting him as Matt.
Regardless, casting a film is the least of your worries. You need to decide on the story -- that is, the central conflict that drives the events -- before you think about casting.
In this case... What drove Matt to become the person he was? In an era of extreme prejudice, why is he so respectful? Why is he so dedicated to being a lawman? Why is he afraid of commitment in general, and women in particular? Is he suicidal? Embittered over something?
A story showing how Matt got to be the way he was -- something never clearly shown in the TV series -- would be a movie worth making and seeing. This would leave room for a sequel, in which we see him struggling over some difficult situation.
You'd need a really talented writer to pen this -- and I am not that writer.
Do you have suggestions as far as writers are concerned? I mean, where does a short story scribe or screenwriter interested in Westerns go to hone the craft nowadays? No more pulp magazines, radio/TV shows or "B" units at movie studios. Frank Nugent, where are you?
May I bone your kipper, Mademoiselle?
To anyone who wants to be a screenwriter... Unless you have immense talent (especially at penning other people's stories) and a very strong drive, forget about it. The probability of seeing your own stories on the screen is small. I have almost given up. If I'd started 20 years ago (I'm 69), I might have made it.
There are fan sites for just about any genre, movie, or TV series. You might start there.
There's at least one site, Talentville, where you can post your scripts and have other writers critique them.
Most of the books on screenwriting are crap. The one worth reading and absorbing is Story, by Robert McKee. It also helps to take a formal course.
I totally disagree with Matt being a "social liberal". He was law and order but he also turned vigilante a few times. In "Hostage" he took off the badge so he could kill Jude Bonner (who had kidnapped Kitty, raped her and shot her bebcause Matt brought in his younger, stupid brother. A classic episode with bad-guy William Smith as Jude Bonner. Being for law and order hardly makes you a social liberal. Most TV sheriffs, marshals were pretty straight-as-an-arrow types.
I imagine back in the day sheriffs/marshals bent the rules quite a bit because they could. No lawyers, news media chasing you.
I think the "social liberal" label comes from his acceptance of and fairness toward all classes and races--American Indians, blacks, etc. He seems to have no prejudices. At the same time, he's mostly very conservative and law-and-order, with rare exceptions toward vigilantism, as in the Jude Bonner example given above. Overall, Dillon seems to be fairly middle-of-the-road. In other words, rational.
sharethis is the first time I've seen this (a user being booted out of IMDb) - is there somewhere in particular that spells out what criteria IMDb employs to dump someone, and can you get your account reinstated? Serve out a suspension, as it were?
thanks Tresix ☺
(and anyone else who can help shed some light!)
I've seen it happen on other posts, but, from what I read, your..."playmate"...didn't say anything that I would construe as "offensive". I've had some posts that were deleted by the administration too, but don't know why they were.
As to the story for the movie, it would definitely be an "origin" story, to borrow the lingo from the superhero movie. I have no problem separating the actor and the character and could see C. Eastwood as the elderly Dillon.
Annoying the world since 1960!
There's a physical problem with Eastwood pere as Dillon -- he's skinny.
One of the great things about Arness is that he's tall and muscular. If you do something he doesn't like -- WHAP! This helps the storytelling, because Matt can often "intimidate" his way out of a situation, rather then using his gun.
The brain is not working.
How about Timothy Olyphant? Justified is modern Gunsmoke, so...
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I said earlier we need a story before worrying about casting. Here's a good idea for one.
There's a great Burt Lancaster Western you've probably never seen -- Lawman. Lancaster is so incorruptible, and so determined to see that the letter of the law is precisely obeyed, that needless, horrifying tragedy ensues. How about something similar for a Gunsmoke movie?
The TV series presented no coherent background for Matt. He was adopted, and a fairly rowdy young man. Several older men influenced him positively to become a person of integrity.
Suppose one of his influences was some brutal, horrifying crime in which the criminal(s) got away. This twists Matt in the direction of upholding the law at any cost. He becomes more concerned about law than justice, until...
I haven't figured out what happens after "until".
There were some episodes where Matt ran into an old mentor whose career was at the "until" stage and Matt had to bring them down. I'm thinking of the one with Victor French as the sadistic sheriff with Nick Nolte as his deputy. French's sheriff was so mean, he nearly broke the hand of a little old lady who didn't like him. Matt of the movie would try to corral the corrupt mentor.
As to the younger Eastwood: I wouldn't exactly call him "skinny". Yes, compared to James Arness, he might look "puny", but he is quite muscular.
Annoying the world since 1960!
There's an episode in which Morgan Woodward went to prison for murder because Matt (at that time his deputy) testified against him. He finally acknowledges his guilt and forgives Matt.
One way or another, we need a story that shows how Matt got to be the way he was.
Like I said, it would definitely be an origin story, so to speak.
Annoying the world since 1960!
Just for grins,
Matt Dillon - Hugh Jackman
Chester - Alex Skarsgard
Doc - Brian Cox/Russell Crowe
Miss Kitty. - Stana Katic/Melissa McCarthy(slimmer version)
Quint - Vin Diesel
Festus - Josh Hartnett
A movie would take away from something sacred as the original Gunsmoke.
Smoke me a kipper. I'll be back for breakfast
Chester -- Alex SkarsgardSo... He injured his leg while swinging from a vine?
It would only be woked-up crap with CGI action, endless cartoon chases and fights, sex, and stupid catchphrases. There's no need for a remake. It was done perfectly the first time.
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