Remake'o'mania continues apace... Last April we reported that a Short Circuit remake was in the pipeline, and the return of Johnny 5 moves a little closer with news that a writer has been signed up to hunker down and produce a script.
Dan Milano, who's best known for his work on Seth Green's deranged stop-motion Robot Chicken series, will be putting his robotic expertise to good use recrafting the 1986 story of the nuclear-armed US military 'bot that goes rogue (in a nice way) when it's hit by lightning.
With its Wall-E-alike hero, and Steve Guttenberg and Ally Sheedy as the brainy scientist and tree-hugging hippy type who try to stop it falling into the warmongering hands of the US army, **Short Circuit **was fun if undemanding family fare.
David Foster, who's producing for Dimension Films alongside Ryan E. Heppe and John Hyde, promises the remake will showcase all the wonders of modern robotics: "We're bringing Number 5 into the 21st Century and taking advantage of the improvements in robotics that are so massive that robots are now performing heart surgeries in hospitals."
"We think of Wall-E as an extended trailer for our film, because it's the same face," said Foster. Milano, meanwhile is charged with ensuring an edgier remake. According to Variety, his brief is to provide a more subversive edge, which could mean giving Johnny 5 a crack problem or simply recasting Guttenberg. Watch this space.