Guys, I really don't like being dismissive about things from the past. I hate it when people say they don't like watching movies in black and white, or can't focus long enough to understand the rat-a-tat dialogue in old screwball comedies. There's even a point at which something is old that it's legitimately time to revive it, unlike remakes of movies that aren't even five years old.
But I'm having a hard time seeing the necessity of making a trilogy-- three whole movies!-- about Roy Rogers, the cowboy actor and singer who starred in dozens of B-movie Westerns in the 1940s and 1950s, and is probably the single reason most baby boomer boys wanted to be cowboys. Variety reports that 821 Entertainment has obtained all the rights to the performer's life and the intellectual property controlled by the estate. The group's CEO Eric Geadelmann says the movies won't be a Western or a biopic or anything, but "a family fantasy adventure. Roy Rogers, Dale Evans and Trigger are quintessential figures of America, and we will introduce this franchise to a new audience while capitalizing on the millions of Roy Rogers fans worldwide."
Yeah... I guess I get it. Rogers was a big deal, many millions of his fans are still alive and probably itching to re-introduce him to their kids or grandkids. But the very notion just seems so old-fashioned, as musty as the song Rogers made famous, "Happy Trails." Am I missing the legions of Roy Rogers fans out there who will all buy tickets on opening weekend? Or is this entire planned trilogy just really and truly unnecessary?
