12:38 p.m. - 2009-05-06
Pitch
These are the movie ideas we would have "pitched" to Robert Redford last weekend had he not been surrounded by a phalanx of threatening-looking musclemen:
The Horse Whisperer 2: Look Who's Whispering
Okay. So, say you're the horse whisperer. You're a really good whisperer and you're doing your job, and then one day, THE HORSE WHISPERS BACK! And it's voice is the same voice as John Travolta! And the two become fast friends and the horse whisperer learns to stop whispering occasionally and do a little LISTENING, and there's a sub-plot, something about rascally claim-jumpers and trouble down to the old abandoned mine. The demographic for this film would be people who enjoy seeing wise-cracking horses, which is to say EVERYBODY!
More Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid
Okay. So the premise here is, you know how you thought they got shot full of millions of bullets at the end of the first movie but they didn't actually show it? And you know how in Pulp Fiction the two guys are standing in a room and some idiot runs in and fires like a hundred bullets, all of which miraculously miss the two guys? So the upshot is, Butch and Kid DIDN'T DIE IN THE FIRST ONE AFTER ALL. So, instead of being dead they, um, do robberies and have bicycle rides with pretty ladies, but, again following Pulp Fiction's lead, with lots and lots of swearing. The two leads would have to be around the same age as Newman and Redford in the original, so let's maybe get, I don't know, Brad Pitt and, for the other one, who the hell...Tom Sizemore? Well, if we get Pitt, the other one doen't really matter. (BTW, did you notice how one of the characters is named "The Sundance Kid" and Robert Redford started a film festival and called it "The Sundance Film Festival"? Weird.)
The Sting 3: Space Bugaloo
Okay. The franchise got a little derailed by The Sting 2, which we can all agree blew. This should help get things back on track. It's the same basic story as The Sting...but in space! It's the future and there's like, I don't know, a colony on the moon where there's gambling and racketeering and the two guys from The Sting were on the lam so the moon (remember now, this is set in the future) seemed like a good place to go. Now, since Mr Newman is unfortunately no longer with us we can't use the original actors, but what we CAN do is use subtle exposition to explain that at some point between when The Sting took place and now, the two leads CHANGED THEIR APPEARANCE via surgery so that it would be easier to go somewhere else and pull another "sting". Ideally we'd get Eddie Murphy and Chris Rock. And also, we'd keep the infectious Scott Joplin score, but maybe add some synthesizers and a turntable to make it sound more "space-age".
The Last Hora
Okay. So there's this really really really really really really good klezmer band from the middle of nowhere and they can't get a break. UNTIL they happen to play at an event attended by a legendary film artist. After the band plays, the film artist comes up to the band and he's in tears and he tells the band that their music is the sound of his heart crying, and they must, MUST!, let him produce a concert film featuring the klezmer band plus lots of famous musical guests like Tom Jones, Loretta Lynn and Rush. They do the concert and it gets made into a movie and the klezmer band gets really famous. This won't make nearly as much money as the other movies, but it will bring critical acclaim and prestige to everyone involved, plus the klezmer band will be famous and will be able to parlay their fame into promotional opportunities and up their fee for weddings. Maybe they'll move some t-shirts as well.
