Could be. Han Sanping of China Film has been quoted talking up some projects he's trying to set up in co-production with Hollywood studios and top of the list is a would-be remake of The Karate Kid. If Han's plan comes together Will Smith's son Jaden will take the lead with Smith playing the primary villain and the Pat Morita role being taken by either Jackie Chan or Stephen Chow. With this sort of set up the project would be retitled The Kung Fu Kid.
Now, this is all in discussion stages, so nothing is definite but Han and China Film also have a hand in the upcoming Snow and the Seven which is set up and getting ready to go so he's not just blowing smoke. I can't for the lfie of me imagine that Chow - a very proud man and one of the biggest stars in the world - would ever consent to do something like this but Chan has proven very willing to take on jobs just for the paycheck in recent years so that particular configuration actually seems pretty likely. Also in the works is Tai Chi Tiger to star Keanu Reeves and Yuen Wu Ping protege Chen Hu.
Wh...what? I'm still sleeping, right? This is a very bad dream that will end with me waking up feeling sick.
I wrote about this back in September, but Will Smith spoke out about it and said that he wasn't involved in a remake of the film nor was his son.
At the time Han Sanping wasn't mentioned but Jerry Weintraub, the original producer, was.
I thought the casting would be really interesting, but Smith was apparently pretty strong about the denial.
It's a shame if Smith's camp is strongly denying it. Then again, people frequently deny things they're not quite ready to go public with - sometimes strongly.
Wow. This sounds really... strange. I have to agree with Rhythm-X, tho - I don't see a remake / re-imagining of this film as an artistic violation. It was a fun flick whose rep has dwindled because of lackluster sequels and Ralph Macchio's inherent mock-ability.
I don't know. It would all depend on how the thing was handled - I'd hate to see Chow blow an intro to worldwide auds with something that couldn't stand side-by-side with his other works. It seems like Will Smith has been making some more thoughtful decisions with his career lately, so who knows - maybe this could turn out to be something exciting.
If Chow was in this, i hope they actually let him co-write the script, because it will be the only way that this could be good. Because there's no need to trick ourselves here, when was the last time hollywood had any idea of how to handle a story about martial arts and asian culture, that it wasn't a stereotype-fest?
I don't think Chow's humor would translate well over to typical western audiences. His brand of slap stick is hard to swallow for most Joe Six Packs and to do those jokes in English as well would be pretty hard for him I would think.