Hey folks, Harry here with something that I think personally sounds pretty dreadful. I just get the feeling that Myers will try to become Peter Sellers' classic character and that would be a fatal flaw. There is only one person that I have heard come up with a great concept for a remake of this... and that was Harry Lime... but alas, he's in the sewers and not Reitman's office. Sigh. Oh well. Here this is... perhaps it'll work...
Hey, everyone. "Moriarty" here with a few added comments. Like everyone else in town, Mike Myers is signing up for as many pictures as he can logically squeeze in before the rumored actors' strike. MGM has a bad habit, though... they like to announce things before they're official. They did it before on this project when Chris McGurk started talking about Kevin Spacey playing Clouseau. I hope this is just another case of MGM blabbing prematurely. Myers is signed for a serious role in a film called TIMEPIECE, co-starring with Helen Hunt and Anne Heche, and there's another project -- one he was associated with before, then dropped out of -- that he may well be going back to. I can't say which project yet, but I hope to break the story in the next few days, as soon as the news becomes official.
Knowles is right, by the way. The only sane person I've ever heard talk about how to further extend the PINK PANTHER franchise is my cohort in crime, Harry Lime. He was here at the Labs one night, hiding out while the police combed the sewers for him, and I mentioned to him that Ivan Reitman was in charge of breathing new life into the property. He scoffed, an interesting sound to say the least. "They'll screw it up. They'll try to make it about Clouseau."
"Well, isn't that what people want?" I asked.
"NO!" Lime gestured threateningly at me as he began to pace the Labs. "The name of the first film isn't INSPECTOR CLOUSEAU."
"No, that was the name of the bizarre Bud Yorkin remake with Alan Arkin."
"LISTEN TO ME! The first film is called THE PINK PANTHER. What is the Pink Panther? Is that Clouseau's nickname? Is it code for something he does or something about him? No. It's the name of a diamond. And for a time, they tried to tie the sequels to the diamond. They finally gave up on that, though, and that's why we had to see movies with Ted Wass and Roberto 'I Want To Make Love To Your Firmament' Benigni pissing all over the memory of Sellers."
"So how do you fix it?"
"Simple. The Pink Panther is on tour in Hong Kong. The head of security for the venue where it's being displayed... Jackie Chan. BAM! There's your movie. $150 million if you give half a shit about the script."
Lime pocketed the sandwich I'd made for myself, stole some beakers and flasks, and managed to smuggle an entire desk out the backdoor of the Labs, and I think he got away with it all because I was stunned at how obvious the choice was. Drop Clouseau, use the diamond, and open the franchise up. Have the next film deal with Adam Sandler's turn guarding the diamond. Each new comic you bring into the series gives it a totally different flavor. If Mike Myers does end up attaching himself to this film, I hope he's got enough integrity to not just ape the work of his idol by playing the same role. If he pushes himself to come up with a comic creation that's his, that's original, that's a worthy successor in the series, then maybe there's a chance that this could be something special. As it stands right now, throwing $20 million at him just so they can roll before the strike sounds like a recipe for disaster.
Taken from the UK's Daily Telegraph:
MGM intends to remake The Pink Panther, the film directed by Blake Edwards in which Peter Sellers introduced the indomitable French detective Inspector Clouseau in 1963. Mike Myers, the star of Austin Powers, has been asked to reprise the role for a fee of £14.2 million. The actor grew up in Canada as the son of British immigrants, who often spent evenings listening to recordings of Peter Sellers and The Goon Show.
In his spy spoof series, Myers emulated the technique of playing multiple characters used by Sellers in movies such as The Mouse That Roared and Dr Strangelove. A script for the new film is finished, apparently adhering to the original plot of a diamond theft, with Henry Mancini's score. The producer will be the Czech-born Ivan Reitman, who directed Dan Akroyd in Ghostbusters
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