Remember that Martin Scorsese project to remake Kurosawa’s High and Low? The one that has been on and off for about 20 years now. Well, the latest bit of news about the project is brought to us by Black Voices, which reports that Chris Rock has now replaced David Mamet as the screenwriter.
Rock, best known for his comedy roles, may not feel like the obvious candidate to pen the new remake. He does, however, have some screenwriting experience, although all four of his previous ventures have been for comedies, and not entirely successful ones, either: I Think I Love My Wife (2007, co-writer) currently has a 18% Rotten Tomatoes rating, while Head of State (2003, co-writer) fares a little bit better with 30% and Down to Earth (2001, co-writer) has 19%. The 1993 mockumentary CB4, which Rock also wrote, stands at 58%.
According to the Black Voices article, veteran director Mike Nichols (Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, The Graduate, and most recently Charlie Wilson’s War) is still attached to helm the production. Whether Martin Scorsese or Scott Rudin are still involved as producers is not clear. Neither is it mentioned whether Rock is starting from scratch, or if he is simply adjusting David Mamet’s earlier script.
Will he call it Everybody Hates Gondo?
Sounds a bizarre choice at first thought, but I did make the comment when the AK Club was discussion High and Low that if Gondo was a Baraku then it would be the equivalent of a Hollywood film of the time casting an African American actor in the role. I guess nowadays thankfully that wouldn’t be such a big deal, but maybe it is an element that Rock could play with in his script.