There have been rumors of a Romancing the Stone remake for years now, but fortunately none of them have ever panned out. The original, directed by Robert Zemeckis and starring Michael Douglas, Kathleen Turner, and Danny DeVito, is an incredibly fun film that perfectly balances action/adventure with great romantic chemistry between the leads. Needless to say, it would be incredibly easy for any remake to try and capture that same energy but come across as a phoney knock-off. Fortunately it now looks like the project won't be happening, but not for the greatest reason in the world.
THR reports that NBC has signed a deal with 20th Century Fox, who owns the film rights, to adapt the Zemeckis film into a television series. Shawn Levy, who is best known for directing features like Night at the Museum, The Pink Panther and the upcoming Real Steel, has signed on to direct while Mark Friedman, who wrote 16 episodes of the Christian Slater-series The Forgotten, will handle the writing duties. The show will expand on the plot from the first film, with romance novelist named Joan Wilder teaming up with a treasure hunter named Jack T. Colton to find her missing sister. Just last week it was reported by Moviehole that the film remake was still on with names like Katherine Heigl, Taylor Kitsch and Gerard Butler on the studio's wishlist.
I must admit that I'm actually of two minds about this. On the positive side, a weekly series will force the writers to be a bit more creative in their adaptation, meaning that we won't just get a rehash of the same film. On the negative side, Romancing the Stone is still one of the best adventure movies from the 80s and it would be terrible if a bad television series ruined its legacy.
