Rebel Wilson Will Lead a Gender-Swapped Remake of DIRTY ROTTEN SCOUNDRELS
I just watched 1988's Dirty Rotten Scoundrels for the first time a few weeks ago, and the Michael Caine and Steve Martin comedy still holds up fairly well today. But Variety reports that MGM is developing a gender-swapped remake of the con man comedy and they've cast Pitch Perfect's Rebel Wilson in one of the lead roles.
Dirty Rotten Scoundrels was a remake of Marlon Brando and David Niven's 1964 film Bedtime Story, and it followed two con artists — a high class aristocrat (Caine) and a low-rent flim-flam man (Martin) — as they competed to win a wealthy woman's money. The new film will be set in modern day and feature two women who "compete to swindle a naive tech prodigy out of his fortune."
I'm not opposed to the gender-swapping aspect of this movie (if Hollywood is going to incessantly remake movies, at least gender-swapping provides the basis for a relatively fresh take on a story), but I'm not the biggest fan of Wilson's. I'm not crazy about her schtick and she hasn't shown a lot of range, but I will say that if she ends up playing the high-class part that Caine played in the '88 film, that would be a huge change of pace for her and would make me far more interested in this remake than I am now. (The ending of the '88 movie might also need to be tweaked a little for this version to avoid controversy.)
What do you think? Have you seen the '88 movie? Since Wilson's on board regardless, do you want to see her in the Caine or Martin role?