'Butch Travolta and the Sundance Cruise'?

If you have a grain of salt handy, now would be a good time to use it. A British tabloid cites unnamed sources who claim that Tom Cruise is remaking Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, in which he would star opposite John Travolta. Reportedly, Cruise got Paul Newman's blessing to take on the project in the months before he passed away last year. I have heard Cruise talk about Butch and Sundance before in interviews, but as for remaking it with Travolta? I just don't think this sticks. I would be more apt to believe that Cruise was looking to produce the film with a couple younger stars. Redford was 13 years younger than Cruise is now when the original was made, and Travolta's not convincing enough anymore that anyone would believe him in a wild west role. Still, the source claims that Cruise in interviewing screenwriters to tackle William Goldman's genre-bending script, and from the sounds of it, this isn't something Cruise is hypothesizing. “It has been a pet project of his that has been on the back-burner for years, but now he’s ready to go, and will most likely happily eschew the enormous salary that he normally commands.” Because nobody uses "eschews" conversationally, I'm immediately suspicious of that entire quote, as if I weren't already leery of the whole thing. In fact, I'm almost Dennis Leary of the news/gossip/whatever. On the flip side, everybody's doing remakes, and it's not like Cruise's United Artists studios has been dominating the box office. This would probably sell more tickets than, say, Lions for Lambs, but I still have a hard time believing it. Finally, I'd like to mention that I am in general more amenable to remakes than most people. I have no absolute rule about them, although I acknowledge that sometimes movies are so bad there isn't a point to the remake just as sometimes the movies are so good that doing them over is completely inconsequential. There is no way you can remake Butch and Sundance.The chemistry is just not there, not between Cruise and Travolta (or Travolta or anybody, or Cruise and his wife...although that's something different), and beyond the chemistry, neither Cruise nor Travolta are the same kinds of actors as Newman and Redford. By that, I mean I'm always aware that Tom and Tron Javolta are trying, and I never see the wheels turning for Newman and Redford. You just can't pull it off. So why sully a classic and your own reputations?

Comments

[Christian Avila]

I agree. Leave this classic alone.

[Emo]

Absolutely....get some real actors.

[Anybody]

Please please no... the original is so good. Nobody, let alone Cruiser and Barbarino, should remake this gem.

[Alex]

No. Please no.