Zac Efron In Footloose Remake… Are You Kidding Me?

Written on October 28, 2008 by Marc Eastman in Newsish

Over the last few weeks movie-industry news has been riddled with talk of remakes. We now add to the growing list an update on the rework of Footloose, and the shiny report that Zac Efron is stepping in.

Image via Wikipedia

Right on the heels of having the number one movie at the box-office, and otherwise pulling in major marketability as the cutest thing ever (for at least 14 more minutes), Efron will apparently lend his talent to one of the best (if you like making money) or worst (if you have a foam finger with the words “brain cells” on it) ideas in movie history.

I’m not sure why there is such a rush on remakes, or why so many of them suddenly aim at the early to late 80s, but things are moving in a dangerous direction. Movie studios beware. You are going to have to kick this one and others like out quick, and pimp Efron through an 80-hour work week for the next 2-5 years if you expect return on investment to continue.

Is the Footloose remake going to make money? Of course it is. If you get it on a screen fast enough, it doesn’t matter what Efron’s in, as long as he’s in it.

But, this is a much trickier thing than it might appear. High School Musical 3 isn’t exactly up against much that serves as real competition, and that’s in the middle of a pretty ugly lull in releases with any serious drive. And, the thing has two more problems — it isn’t 1984, and Footloose was garbage the first time around.

The story was only something barely workable as silly, guilty pleasure when you were trying to get 1984 ticket-buyers through the doors, and they aren’t around anymore. In 1984 you could sort of pretend that the events in question were somehow “live,” and we could all suspend disbelief to watch nonsense dancing, and have a good time. Later, we could rent the (gasp, swoon) VHS, have small get togethers where we drank a lot with a group of friends and pretended that we only pretended to sort of like the stupid thing, so that eventually someone would flail their head around and knock themselves out on a lamp, or slide across the floor on their knees. Or both.

That ain’t flying in today’s market.

Imagine today’s prime Efron and/or ticket-buying audience being confronted with John Lithgow telling them they can’t dance. Are you kidding me? That dog don’t hunt. The world where the right age-range might meet sensibilities that can work through the premise is long gone. How about, Old Preacher Dude got hisself capped, news at 11?

Now, surely the story will be tweaked a bit, but what the hell are we stopping there for? What great sell is it to be able to attach the name Footloose to something? If you’re going to work the thing over, do it right. Spin things around to a degree that will add relevance, slap your Efron on it, and call the thing something else. Now, Footloose is just stupid, let’s just make sure we’re together there. It was a small part of a string of movies that might have actually done something though. Anything that comes to mind as 80′s movie is fairly stupid as well, but they had a bit of meaning to them. They worked with teenagers of the time, understood them, and seemed rather to like them. These stories don’t make sense now, don’t understand their audience, and remaking these things is pretty clearly to tell today’s younger crowd that you don’t give a shit about them, who they are, or what problems they face.

Say Anything, Some Kind of Wonderful, Pretty in Pink, and countless others were fun movies you could see and talk about, but in each of them there was a little ghost of someone out there saying, “Hey, I get you.” You can’t show those movies to someone from today, and have them think it tells of understanding their lives any more than you could manage it by showing it to an audience in 1850.

Like I said, it’s bound to make money if they whip it out as fast as I’m sure they will, but if you could stick Efron in anything, why bother with this? People will go because Efron is in it, yes, but people aren’t going in order to, in some sense that is hard to define, see the movie. Why? Because I’m going to something else, and I’m taking my demographic with me, and we’re the only ones the movie aimed at.

It’s a tricky game when movies don’t know who they’re talking to, and don’t care.

There’s no Ducky around today, and high-schoolers today wouldn’t know what kind of surreal fantasy The Breakfast Club is supposed to represent. Stop screwing with my life just because you can’t think of a script.

Special thanks to getthebigpicture.net for being the first in my inbox with the update.

The main picture is from buzzsugar.net, who also wrote up the Efron in Footloose story.

Picture of Efron is ala GettyImages.