Bad Lieutenant Remake gets Interesting

Here is a tidbit from the rumour-mill as strange and wacky as the Timecrimes do-over with David Cronenberg (here).  The Hollywood Reporter indicated today that Werner Herzog is the director on board for the Bad Lieutenant remake, and the star will be Nicholas Cage.  While I’m sure Cage can “OOOOO, OOOOO, OOOOOOOO” as well as Harvey Keitel, it seems highly likely that a second go around at the delicate balance-act of Abel Ferraras film seems destined to crash and burn.  But Werner Herzog?  There is a wild-card director if there ever was one and always a sign of mad genius.  Cancel that with Avi Lerner on the production side, whose company Millennium Films, responsible for the critically trashed Al Pacino vehicle 88 Minutes and worse War Inc. is the new Cannon or Golan-Globus.

This is too strange not to post!

Screen offers a few quotes from those involved in the remake that underscore the misguided-ness:

“In the spirit of the original, we really wanted this to be a director’s piece,” Pressman said. “And we couldn’t be more thrilled with the explosive combination of Herzog and Cage as they explore the depths of human depravity and moral ambiguity that is unique to this character.”

“Bad Lieutenant is one of my all time favorite films,” Lerner said. “I am pleased to be working with Nic Cage, Werner Herzog and Ed Pressman. Their updated take on such a brilliant film is sure to be a hit with today’s audience. This all makes for a winning combination.”

How Bad Lieutenant makes for an audience-friendly hit is beyond me (And heck, MGM couldn’t sell the heroic story of Rescue Dawn into a hit, then how does a morally depraved lunatic-cop investigating the raping of nuns (oops, this time around it is Senegalese illegal immigrants and drugs) become palatable to the mainstream - Yes, they’re funny folk over at Millennium Films)