Home Entertainment Shane Black to recreate Remo Williams in THE DESTROYER

Shane Black to recreate Remo Williams in THE DESTROYER

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The Destroyer

Another week, another guilty pleasure from my youth. Sony Pictures has tapped Shane Black (Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, Iron Man 3) to direct a revival of “The Destroyer” franchise of pulp action novels, with the script written by Jim Uhls (Fight Club) and James Mullaney – one of the writers of The Destroyer series.

The series revolves around Remo Williams, a cop from Newark, New Jersey, who is sentenced to death for a crime he didn’t commit. However, the execution is faked and Williams is instead recruited into a secret government organisation known as CURE to be an assassin; where he is trained by Chiun, the last master of a deadly martial art style known as Sinanju. Williams proceeds to thwart the plans of numerous criminals, mad scientists and various other super human foes. For example:  Mr Gordons, a shapeshifting NASA-created android with limited emotional capabilities and Dr Judith Loftus, a scientist specialising in genetic engineering who has the ability to turn into a weretiger (thanks Wikipedia!). It really is as silly as it sounds but also a great deal of fun and Shane Black is a fantastic pick to deal with the blend of dark humour, silliness and action the series contains.

Created by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir and first published in 1971, the original series consists of 145 novels. It was adapted for the big screen in 1985 with Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins starring Fred Ward as Remo Williams and Joel Grey (in terrible Asian make-up) as Chiun and was intended to launch a franchise based on the novels. Despite being nominated for an Oscar, ironically for makeup, it flopped hard at the box office, only earning $14 million domestically off a $40 million budget and scrapping all franchise ideas in the process.

See  the trailer below for pure 80’s action cheese, that really makes me want to watch it… again… sigh.

Last Updated: August 25, 2014

5 Comments

  1. Rinceable

    August 25, 2014 at 15:26

    I loled so hard at this trailer.

    Reply

  2. Kervyn Cloete

    August 25, 2014 at 15:30

    I haven’t seen Remo Williams since a I was a teen, and yet for some reason I can remember huge portions of the movie like it was yesterday. The cheese apparently sticks in your brain.

    Reply

    • Alien Emperor Trevor

      August 25, 2014 at 15:34

      I have some of these packed in my book storage cupboard right next to the Mack Bolans & Louis L’Amours 😀

      Reply

    • Justin Hess

      August 25, 2014 at 18:44

      I just remember running on water for some reason. I’m not sure if that actually happened in this movie. Or happened in any movie at all, to be honest

      Reply

      • Kervyn Cloete

        August 25, 2014 at 19:29

        Yep, that’s from Remo. His master Chiang was able to run on water.

        Reply

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