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"Revenge of the Nerds" Remake Cancelled
An anonymous reader writes, "Fox Atomic has pulled the plug on the Revenge of the Nerds remake. The movie was into two weeks of shooting when Emory University, the place where it was shooting, decided it no longer wanted to be part of the film."
Maybe now Hollywod will come up with, dare I say it, an original movie idea.
If you can read this, it's already too late.
Frankly, with as many spoiled rich kids that come to Emory's undergrad program, we need all the geek credibility we can get.
Plus, imagine all the Coca-Cola product placements!
Now that will be real and oh so funny
I suspect it was really pulled because they couldn't get Lisa Simpson for the movie. (and they were smart enough to not even try for Paris Hilton...)
5 5
see> http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/11/22/13382
RO-BOT HOOOOOUSE!!!
It's blatantly obvious that Denmark is trying to identify the geeks "out there".
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
The real Revenge of the Nerds will be when Georgia Tech beats Georgia in football today ...
Production on one of Fox Atomic's first films -- a remake of the 1984 cult classic "Revenge of the Nerds" -- has been shut down after Emory University in Atlanta, where more than a third of the film was to be shot, backed out of its agreement to allow Fox to film on campus. It's believed that Emory officials ultimately balked at the raunchy nature of the project.
Fox was alerted to the issue four days before the shoot was planned to start on Oct. 9. After attempting to shoot at other colleges in Atlanta, the decision was made to call it quits and figure out a new plan.
Production is now officially on hiatus, with the clock ticking, considering that winter (and snow) is approaching, and much of the film is set outdoors in autumn, back-to-school weather.
A Fox Atomic rep said that Fox was still hoping to release the film in August and that all of the cast and crew -- presently being flown back from Atlanta -- remain intact.
"Revenge of the Nerds" is planned as one of the debut releases for newly launched Fox Atomic, Fox's teen-oriented genre label. The label's first release is "Turistas," which bows Dec. 1, followed by "The Hills Have Eyes 2" on March 2 and "28 Weeks Later," which unspools May 11.
Also in production at Fox Atomic is the comedy "The Comebacks."
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Sounds like they didn't want to make a winter movie. The REAL question though is if they are going for next August, how good is this movie really going to be? They have to change colleges and set up completely somewhere else and if they are waiting for after winter, that's only a few months of shooting
Odd about this production company. They are making two sequels to moderately decent movies (The hills have Eyes" and "28 Weeks Later" and their first movie "Turistas" is coming/out now (ref: here) Are they just rolling the dice to see what movies stick?
The original flick was a great film about "nerd persecution" in the 1980s. Back then, being a "nerd" was something that was truly dreaded. Not like today's "cool nerd" or "geek chic" like Weezer or Marc Cuban. Seriously, go watch the original movie, an substitute "nerd" for "black" or any other group. They were persecuted, driven out of their homes, had basically a direct-allusion to a burning cross outside their house (a burning "Nerds" sign), rocks thrown in their windows ("Nerds Get Out"), etc.
The 2nd movie was "ok" and the 3rd and 4th were awful. But all three of those were simply comedies, not in the same manner as the first one, which was a funny comedy, but subtly wrapped in a deeper social message. No, I'm not saying RotN was some amazingly socially insightful movie. But that doesn't mean that it didn't have some surprising amount of depth to it either...
Scheduling the production of a full-blown feature film is - to say the least - a bitch. From what what I've read (which is little, since I wouldn't have gone to see the remake if you held a gun to my head) they were shooting 99% of the movie on the Emory campus, so they essentially had their entire schedule tossed out the window when their location got yanked. That means shutting the entire movie down until it's reset / rescheduled, and at that point things only get worse. Are any of your actors scheduled to work on any other shows during your new schedule? Gotta recast or offer them enough cash to quit the other job, which they won't do because that'll get them blacklisted for being unreliable (and let's face it, if you're starring in a ROTN remake you probably need all the good press you can get.) Same with crew. Do you keep them on the clock while you reschedule? If not, they all go find new jobs and you now have to find an all-new crew. Plus, all this delay is eating into your post-production schedule. The movie is already scheduled for release next summer and you just lost - what, a month? Two? If the studio was fully behind the movie and was willing to throw piles of cash at it those are all obstacles that can be overcome, but if the studio was fully behind the movie then it would be being made by Fox proper and not Fox Moonbat or whatever the sub-studio is called. Emory pulled the plug, the accountants said "write it off," and that was the end for that movie. All for the best, frankly. The original is perfect as it is. They'd make more money by re-releasing the first one then a remake would ever see.
Why didn't you just put "Being John Malkovich" and "Bubba Ho-tep" in your post instead of using unnamed links? It's not like it makes your point any better; in fact, it makes it weaker to those who don't click on links. At the very least, you could have anchored the links to the film titles.
They'll probably just replace it with a reality show of the same name.
"It is our blasphemy which has made us great, and will sustain us, and which the gods secretly admire in us." - Zelazny
What a miscarriage of justice. Just when you think nerds are getting some respect, some grumpy old Dean keeps us down again. How many times must we make our revenge? Even nerds don't have calculators that count that high.
... and then they built the supercollider.
The article says that production was ceased, not cancelled