In the past decade, MGM has been somewhat hit or miss with their attempt to remake movies in their library, but after the success of last year’s The Magnificent Seven with Denzel Washington and Chris Pratt–which hopefully helped everyone forget their Ben-Hur remake a few months earlier–they’re trying their hand at remaking the classic revenge thriller, DEATH WISH.
The 1974 Wendell Mayes movie, based on the novel by Brian Garfield, helped revive the career of a 53-year-old Charles Bronson and led to four sequels, the last of them being released twenty years after the first. (Side note: Garfield’s other revenge novel, Death Sentence, was turned into a movie by James Wan starring Kevin Bacon in 2007.)
So who better than to play an updated version of Paul Kersey in a remake of the movie that began an action genre trend then Bruce Willis himself?
At 62 years old–I had to do the math TWICE on that one–Willis has been relegated to doing mostly VOD action movies released by Lionsgate Premiere, although the promise of a comeback began earlier this year when he made a brief cameo in M. Night Shyamalan’s Split as his Unbreakable character, David Dunn, who will be back for the sequel called Glass.
This remake is written by the inimitable Joe Carnahan (Smokin’ Aces) and directed by Eli Roth, who is also making another high-profile comeback after a foray into his “Chile-wood” horror movies.
Death Wish will be released by Paramount Pictures nationwide on November 22, also starring Vincent D’Onofrio, Elisabeth Shue, Dean Norris, Mike Epps and Kimberly Elise.
You can decide whether Carnahan, Roth and Willis captured the tone of the original movie by watching the new trailer below.
Edward Douglas | East Coast Editor
