THE RAID Remake Delayed and Casting Wish List Revealed
The Americanized remake of the insanely amazing action film, The Raid, has been delayed. It was supposed to shoot this September. The movie is still going to happen, it just won't go into production until early 2015.
Variety also reports that one of the possible reasons for the delay is the casting. The movie is set up at Screen Gems, and apparently the actors who are frontrunners for main roles in the film include Luke Evans, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo and Ethan Hawke. The report doesn't specify what characters they would play, but this really is a solid cast of actors. They also might be holding out for an even bigger actor.
No offers have officially gone out to any actors yet, and I'm sure there are more in the mix. Chances are the studio is waiting for the schedules of the actors they want to star in the film to clear up so they can have their dream cast.
It's a good thing that the studio is taking their time to make this movie instead of rushing it into production, but it doesn't mean the movie is going to be better than the original. The action film is set to be directed by Patrick Hughes, who recently directed The Expendables 3. When talking about the film in a previous interview, the director had this to say:
"We have a really, really interesting take on that film. One thing, obviously the original just blew my mind and I was fortunate enough to catch up with Gareth Evans in LA at the premiere of ‘The Raid 2.’ The thing that blew my mind with that film was the aesthetics and the fight sequences but also the simplicity of the premise, and there’s so much you can do with that. So our take on it is really interesting and I feel like if anything what I want to do is elevate the emotional aspect of it, and I think those are my favorite action films of all time when you can balance the action and the emotion, and what he did with his first ‘Raid’ was phenomenal."
When talking about the plot he revealed:
"Certainly, we’re not there to recreate that film beat for beat, with the set up we’re following a DEA task team, which was implemented by the Bush administration after September 11th when they realized that terrorism and the drug trade were so closely aligned. So they set up a DEA task team that’s six units and they work across borders and sort of act like Navy SEALS. You never read about it, you never hear about it, but they go on these missions. So that’s a really interesting take and a really nice premise and also what’s interesting on this take on it is the clash of cultures and the clash of martial arts, the fighting styles, which is something that’s going to be a lot of fun when we’ve really started pre-vizzing stuff."
I'm not really expecting much from this movie, but I'll watch it because my curiosity will get the better of me.