Romancing The Stone – the adventure-comedy that really launched the directorial career of Robert Zemeckis, turned Michael Douglas into a proper movie star, and gave us the Douglas-Kathleen Turner-Danny DeVito triple act that would go on to make The War Of The Roses – turns 25 next year. Many happy returns, well done, now sling your hook, you’re being remade.
Yes, after years of unofficial remakes, mostly starring Matthew McConaughey (hello, Sahara. Hey there, Fool’s Gold), Romancing The Stone is being remade, with Fox today announcing that screenwriter Daniel McDermott has been tapped to write the script.
McDermott co-wrote the script for Eagle Eye, so that’s the action side of the remake sorted. But how is he with comedy and romance? We’ll find out in due course.
The original movie, of course, was originally seen as something of an Indiana Jones knock-off, with Douglas as a world-weary adventurer forced to team up with Turner’s breathless romance novelist on a quest to find a) her kidnapped sister and b) a mythical and very lucrative diamond in the Colombian jungle.
But upon its release, it was quickly seen as a bright, funny and inventive flick in its own right, with palpable chemistry between Douglas and Turner, while DeVito was hilarious as the sleazy villain, Ralph. A so-so sequel, Jewel Of The Nile, followed, and is perhaps most famous for the Billy Ocean track, When The Going Gets Tough.
Normally, we’d recommend at this point that Fox actually bring back the original stars and make a Romancing sequel, but Douglas is now 64, Turner isn’t quite the sexpot she was at the time, and Indy IV, though entertaining, showed that sometimes it’s not entirely a great idea to go back. So a remake it is. We’d argue that this isn’t entirely necessary, but we’d be delighted if this turned out to be even half as good as the original.
No producer, director or cast is yet attached. More as we get it.