THE RAID remake delayed, plus casting frontrunners revealed

The Raid: Redemption is one of, if not the best action film to have been made in the last decade. Hell, some would even say ever (and depending on which day of the week you asked me about it, I may even agree with that last sentiment). So to be brutally honest, I would definitely prefer it if Screen Gems’ planned English language remake – because every successful foreign movie needs an English version since reading subtitles are for losers – never happened at all. Apparently I’m just going to have to settle for it not happening for another few months though.

Variety is reporting that the Patrick Hughes (The Expendables 3) directed remake of Gareth Evans’ brutal masterpiece, which was originally scheduled to start shooting in September, has now had its production start date pushed back to some time in the first quarter of 2015, with all current pre-production halted.

More interestingly, these sources say that Luke Evans, Anthony Mackie, Frank Grillo and Ethan Hawke are front runners for lead roles. Wait… Did I say “interestingly”? I meant “freaking alarmingly!”.

I have nothing against any of those guys as actors, in fact I rather like all of them, but there is simply no way – NO WAY – that they can hold a candle to the brilliant martial artists in the original like Iko Uwais and Joe Taslim. And yes, I perfectly understand that we live in a world where Keanu Reeves once claimed to “know kung fu”, but a few weeks of training and camera trickery can only get you so far.

Gareth Evans has been praised by film fans and pundits alike for not making use of the type of rapid-fire cuts popularized by movies like The Bourne series. Evans indicated that his aversion to this hyperactive editing style stems from the fact that he knows that his cast are insanely talented martial artists who accomplish amazing feats, so why would he try and obscure any of their skill by filming it like he was having a seizure?

And this is something that Hughes appreciates just as much, as he told JoBlo last month:

“One thing that blew me away with THE RAID, along with everyone else, was – you know, what was phenomenal – it wasn’t cut up, y’know. You could clearly tell that there weren’t stunt doubles involved because you weren’t cutting around the action, it was done in “oners” and that comes down to rigorous training and having incredible fight choreography play out. We’re just in the middle of casting right now.”

I don’t know about you guys, but I just can’t see Ethan Hawke pulling off something like this.

Well, it may not even be Hawke or any of the other names mentioned above, as according to some of Variety’s other sources though, the reason for the delay was that no casting decisions have been made yet as the producers are holding out to try and nab a bigger name. Well, unless that name is Jet Li, I think we may have a problem.

Last Updated: May 29, 2014