UPDATE: The revolution was only postponed: Red Dawn has just been given a release date of November 2, 2012 (in the States, at least). That's a mere three years after it was shot. Its opening weekend wil see it up against Seth Rogen and Barbra Streisand in Mother's Curse, and the Disney animation Wreck-It Ralph.
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Remember the remake of Red Dawn? Filmed in 2009 with Chris Hemsworth, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Josh Peck, Adrianne Palicki, and directed by Dan Bradley, it's been sitting on the shelf ever since, due to the ructions at MGM. All did not seem hopeful, but the LA Times are reporting that Film District, the company behind Insidious, Drive and The Rum Diary, has liberated the film using their in-house team of teenage guerillas*, meaning it can now finally see the light of day.
The original Red Dawn, you'll be more than aware, was John Milius' Reaganite fable of an alternate 80s America, invaded by communist Russia and its Latin American allies, and defended by Patrick Swayze, Charlie Sheen and their band of renegade "Wolverines". Milius co-wrote the script with Kevin "Waterworld" Reynolds.
The remake is the directorial debut of stunt-coordinator and second-unit man Dan Bradley, who can boast credits on the Bourne and Spider-Man movies, Quantum of Solace, Superman Returns and** ID4**. Helming a $60m studio tentpole should have been a big deal for him then, but has proved to be a ball-ache of the highest order, not least due to the decision to re-cast the Red Menace as Chinese rather than Soviet.
MGM declined to release the film when it emerged from its bankruptcy troubles, and no other studio would touch it either, for fear of offending China and its rather important market. Hence the movie was re-jigged last year to digitally edit and manipulate the enemy into a North Korean force (hopefully with more success than the Steven Seagal comedy Attack Force, which turned vampire aliens into human drug addicts in post-production). Dastardly North Koreans are no more politically correct than dastardly Chinese, but it doesn't matter because North Koreans don't watch Hollywood films.
Film District have declined to comment, since the details are still being thrashed out, but the new Red Dawn is now expected to invade theatres sometime in 2012. Whether it was worth the bother remains to be seen...
*Possibly not quite what happened.