Mel is the only Hollywood director I would trust with this. The sense of disgust and horror I felt when Will Smith was going to do it is gone. I am actually looking forward to this!
Of course, the Liberals are reacting to the Gibson choice with horror and scurrying for their safe spaces.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/wrong-hollywood-twitter-reacts-news-mel-gibson-directing-wild-bunch-145348062.html
Screw them. Gibson is great!
This will be an abomination, just like the Magnificent Seven remake, and every remake of the past decade.
shareNot necessarily. Mel Gibson's Apocalypto and Braveheart and Passion of the Christ were great brutally unforgiving epics. Gibson is the only man currently working in Hollywood capable of doing this justice. The Will Smith version would have been an abomination, but Gibson is not going to make sure the cast fills out all the approved identity politics roles and add a hip-hop soundtrack and plenty of trendy camera tricks. I am sure he will make a worthy remake and normally I HATE remakes. Especially the Magnificent Seven remake. THAT truly WAS an abomination.
shareThere are so many reasons why a Mel Gibson remake of "The Wild Bunch" will fail miserably.
Film-making has changed since 1969.
- Westerns are one of the lowest earning film genres and superhero films (Gibson was actually offered the "Suicide Squad" sequel) are the highest.
- Audiences and critics are really turning away from reboots, remakes and sequels.
- Male actors don't come in the mold of William Holden, Ernest Borgnine and Warren Oates anymore. Instead we've got guys like Chris Pratt...
- Film's with graphic violence don't really draw big crowds, unless it's of the "Deadpool" or "John Wick" fantasy variety.
- The public haven't warmed back up to Mel Gibson, despite his success with "Hacksaw Ridge". I really like Gibson's films, both as an actor and a director, but the guy is a racist, sexist nut who is violent towards women. None of this stuff plays very well in the current social climate.
- There is a big push for more diversity in films, which makes a film with an all-white, all-male cast unpopular from the go.
"The Magnificent Seven", as the other poster mentioned, tried to address all of these points in order to make a commercially viable film and ... it was hugely bland.
BTW, trying to bait people into argument by mentioning "liberals" and "safe spaces" is really unnecessary.
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Personally, I don't care if the film fails. In fact, I really, truly hope Gibson makes the movie as bloody and politically incorrect and Wild Westernish as humanly possible. I hope he EXCEEDS Peckinpah's excesses! I want it to be full of brutal, grizzly looking hardcore gunfighter S.O.B's, gorgeous and willing Mexican prostitutes who drop their dresses at the flip of a peso and greasy, mustachioed, tequila swilling, laughing Mexican bandits and soldiers.
I know full well that kind of movie is bound to fail with modern audiences. But so what, because if Mel makes it, I will be able to see it and buy it on DVD and love it forever like I do the original Wild Bunch and Gibson's Apocalypto and Braveheart.
I do think though, that rather than a 1913 Mexican Revolution setting, Gibson is likely to update it to a modern Mexican Narco War scenario, with disgruntled American Iraq and Afghanistan vets instead of old time bank robbers.
My wildest fantasy about this movie is that Gibson does make it a 1913 Revolution story, makes a decent amount of money, then gets hired to make a film of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian.
The only excesses I've ever seen Gibson use in his films are violence and religion - I'm not sure what modern American director would make the Western you're describing. There are a lot of European (like Hélène Cattet and Bruno Forzani who did "Let The Corpses Tan") and Asian directors (like Takashi Miike with "13 Assassins") who could get close.
I also don't think Peckinpah's original film was solely about it's gratuitous elements. For me, they were just gravy on a great film. I wouldn't have cared about the Mexican army massacre if I hadn't cared about the individual members of the Wild Bunch.
I do think though, that rather than a 1913 Mexican Revolution setting, Gibson is likely to update it to a modern Mexican Narco War scenario, with disgruntled American Iraq and Afghanistan vets instead of old time bank robbers.
yes I'm super excited for it!
shareI think it'll be good stuff but it's gonna have its haters no matter what.
shareRemake: https://moviechat.org/tt2028582/The-Wild-Bunch
Not much news on IMDb, still says "preproduction".
Still waiting on more news about this remake.
share