I DREAM OF JEANNIE ran on TV from 1965 to 1970. That’s 139 episodes of putting up with Larry Hagman’s Prima Donna bullshit and trying to find ways to give us pre-pube fans little tiny peeks at Barbara Eden’s post-pubes.
For what seems like ever since 1970, Sid Ganis and his Out Of The Blue Entertainment company have been trying to get a movie version of JEANNIE made. Ganis is the genius producer behind BIG DADDY, DEUCE BIGALOW: MALE GIGOLO, MR. DEEDS (the remake) and THE MASTER OF DISQUISE, so yes, I DREAM OF JEANNIE will more than likely suck.
Sid is also the President of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), the ass-clowns that give out the Oscars. That should tell you more than enough about that awards show.
Over the years names like Gurinder Chadha (BEND IT LIKE BECKHAM) was going to direct the JEANNIE remake and stars like Jennifer Garner (DUDE, WHERE‘S MY CAR?), Kate Hudson (PARTY OF FIVE) and even Lindsay Lohan (PUNK’D) were kicked around to star as America’s favorite indentured servant.
Keira Knightly (THUNDERPANTS) and a pre- ‘Tony’s Cheating On Me, Where’s the Ben & Jerry’s and My Mom’s Jeans’ Jessica Simpson (THE LOVE GURU) were going to tackle the role too, but it didn’t happen.
Recently Rita Hsiao, a former assistant on THE WONDER YEARS who punched up the scripts for 13 GOING ON 30 and ENCHANTED as well as writing the script for MULAN, was asked to give the JEANNIE script another over-haul. Rita plans to ‘contemporize’ the story. I shutter to think what that even means.
While you can just bet that the producers are hoping to get Will Ferrell (NIGHT AT THE ROXBURY) or Adam Sandler (MIXED NUTS) to take over the Larry Hagman role (because casting one of them is a hell of a lot easier than making a funny movie), if they had any sack at all they would cast a relative unknown as Jeannie.
I say ‘relative unknown’ because I know just who they should get: Sue-Anne Webster.
She is an Australian actress (don’t hold the fact that an Australian actress help goon up the BEWITCHED movie against her) and magician who look more like Barbara Eden than Barbara Eden does these days. Sue-Anne is also the official 'Jeannie' look-alike for http://www.idreamofjeannie.com/.
So, how do you help, because I know you are just chomping at the bit to see justice done in the casting of I DREAM OF JEANNIE? Well, you could go to IMDB and start demanding she be given the role on the discussion boards, and maybe someone reads those, but I prefer a more proactive approach.
Lou D’Esposite is the real money man behind the film. Lou has produced a lot of movies in his day. Most of them crappy movie versions of TV shows like SWAT. Lou was also the 1st AD of the second unit in a little film I was in called GLORY. The only problem is, Lou was also the 2nd AD on a ISTAR, a fact I never let him forget while we were making GLORY, so I don’t think he wants to hear from me again after all these years.
How-some-ever, Lou’s assistant is Rachel Kielborn. Rachel’s email is rachel880@gmail.com. I’ll bet if you were really nice and told Rachel how great Sue-Anne would be in role, she’s pass it on to her boss, because that’s what good assistants who don’t want to go back to bearding for Ty Pennington do.
Once we get this problem licked we can turn our awesome power towards getting Ridley Scott (G.I. JANE) not to mess up THE A-TEAM MOVIE too badly. He’s already signed Joe Carnahan to direct, and while the first 15 minutes of Carnahan’s NARC were great, the rest of the movie was as thin a Jeremy Piven’s (LUCAS) hairline.
One war at a time. One war at a time…
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