When the news broke that Dwayne Johnson was to produce and star in a remake of 1986 cult classic Big Trouble in Little China, it’s fair to say that the reaction wasn’t overwhelmingly positive.
Original director John Carpenter was ambivalent towards it, while the former Jack Burton, Kurt Russell, gave it more of a chance, saying “I don’t know what they’re gonna do. I always look at those movies when I see a remake and it’s like, ‘OK… there’s gotta be a reason.”
Now it sounds as though they’ve found that “reason”, with the president of production at Seven Bucks Production (co-founded by Johnson), Hiram Garcia, telling Collider that the project is a sequel, rather than a remake.
Speaking about his reverence for the original, and how the long-gestating project would be different from John Carpenter’s film, Garcia said:
“There’s a lot of things going on with [Big Trouble in Little China]. We are in the process of developing that, and let me tell you, the idea is not to actually remake Big Trouble in Little China. You can’t remake a classic like that, so what we’re planning to do is we’re going to continue the story. We’re going to continue the universe of Big Trouble in Little China.
“Everything that happened in the original exists and is standalone and I think there’s only one person that could ever play Jack Burton, so Dwayne would never try and play that character. So we are just having a lot of fun. We’re actually in a really great space with the story that we’ve cracked. But yeah, no remake. It is a continuation, and we are deep into development on that as well, and I think you’ll start hearing some things about that probably soon.”
Could this open the door for a return to the role for Kurt Russell? The character of Jack Burton has had a life after the end credits with the comic book series, Old Man Jack, which was written by John Carpenter and Anthony Burch, and reteaming Russell with his Fast and the Furious co-star has potential. As always, let us know what you think in the comments section…
