I was excited about the notion of Roger Corman’s Death Race 2000 being remade at one point. Of course, that was before Paul W.S. (“not the good one”) Anderson was attached to the project. Now I worry that this is just another fan-bomb waiting to happen. It’s hard to think a remake could be worse than the campy cult classic, which starred David Carradine and Sylvester Stallone in a movie about a race across the country, but I think if anyone can make it worse, this is the guy.
MTV’s movie blog caught up with “not the good one” during Comic Con and got some casting news from the director. It appears he’s taking a cue from 2 Fast 2 Furious and casting Tyrese Gibson in one of the leading roles for the movie. The Transformers star is certainly becoming a hot commodity for action flicks, so this becomes another notch in his belt. And hey, he’s already got racing cred with the Fast and the Furious sequel. Now he just gets permission to run over people.
Opposite Gibson and the previously announced Jason Statham is one of the strangest casting moves since… well, frankly I can’t think of any casting decision this strange. Joan Allen will run against Gibson and Statham and, according to Anderson, “kicks the ass out of everybody.”
Anderson considers his Death Race 3000 to be a faithful remake of the original. I guess we’ll see. The movie is slated for a 2008 release.
