More Than One Shadow in 'The Shadow'?

Wednesday

21Jan2009

More Than One Shadow in 'The Shadow'?

Wednesday, January 21, 2009 at 11:45PM

I've always believed that if you're going to re-do something, make it different enough that it's worth the effort. There's nothing that irritates me more than hearing "Life is a Highway" by Rascal effing Flatts - well, in general there's nothing much that irritates me more than that - but it's the same damn song, only with the same boring country instrumentation that's on every song that comes out of Nashville. Change it. Make it your own. And don't let Rascal Flatts anywhere near it.

That goes double for movies, which is why I never stand against the idea of a remake of a film from another country. When they make Let the Right One In, odds are it won't look or feel nearly as Swedish. That's the trouble with the Asian horror remakes; they try to be the same movie...only in English. The Ring got that part right, at least.

So when I heard they were remaking The Shadow last month, I was really baffled. The first movie was dreadful; why revisit that? Producer Michael Uslan, who is working with Sam Raimi on getting the film set up, explained to MTV's Splashpage that it will be quite a bit different.

"I think the one thing going in is we all see The Shadow as more of a force of nature than a specific person in a secret identity. The Shadow may actually be many people."

Now see, that's something I can rally behind.

I'm not sure that fits perfectly with Uslan's insistence that "we've gone back to the pulp roots, the comic book roots of The Shadow, with a dash of the radio roots," because by making him a force of nature or whatever, you're forcing a real change on the character and the story that wasn't there in Orson Welles radio drama days.

But Uslan says the script is coming right along and everyone involved is very excited. I'll reserve complete judgment, but I think it might be wise to take the character in a new direction, and having it be multiple people certainly does that. Just be careful of how much original you want to keep with the new wrinkle.

Colin Boyd |

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