Still Not Much Movement on 'Thomas Crown 2'

We've talked at length about the trouble for The Hobbit and the next James Bond movie as a result of MGM's mountain of debt. But there are other movies that can't move forward without some clarity there, either. Remakes of Poltergeist and RoboCop are stuck in neutral and Pierce Brosnan's sequel to The Thomas Crown Affair is stalled, as well. The Thomas Crown Affair 2 is actually a sequel to a remake that is also a remake of another film. That might be the first time that's happened. The story this time is based around the 1964 heist movie Topkapi, but when in the world will it happen? Angelina Jolie was rumored for the Rene Russo role, but she'll probably be too expensive by the time this gets off the ground. However, director Paul Verhoeven has moved on, casting further doubt on whether or not the sequel will even happen. “No, I am not [directing the film] anymore," Verheoven told MTV. "Things happened there, the regime changed. The initial ideas that they had about Thomas Crown 2 were interesting, I thought. There was a script written by two young writers that used the fact that now we’re living 15, 20 years later.” “Ultimately, [MGM] decided not to [use] that script anymore. Then there was a regime change. And basically I felt that I could not follow [on the project],” he added. Back in February, Brosnan hinted at the scrapped script, but also pointed out how far there is yet to go:

"We’ve got the fourth script in and this is the closest we’ve gotten in structure to making sense. It’s very very hard. Now we have the character, it’s not really fleshed out, so we have to work on him, Mr. Crown, and her, Miss Moore, another affair, more art, but it has to be an unexpected surprise.”

Will anyone be interested if this sequel is 13 years after the fact? That's about the window Brosnan and company are looking at, even without MGM's troubles.