I was thinking about this while doing my Gang Wars review.
Eddie Murphy? But who would be the '80s equivalent of Owen Wilson? Steven Gutenberg? Michael Keaton? Joe Piscopo?
If Jackie Chan did a (Hollywood) buddy movie in the 80s, who would be the buddy?
(11 posts) (4 voices)-
JeremyR
MemberBecause Gang Wars was made in the 1980s and stars someone named "Jackie" who looks very much like Jackie Chan (and who by the cutscenes is apparently the main character), but who has a sidekick named Mike. And I was wondering, who would play Mike?
It's basically a side-scrolling beat 'em up type game, but in between stages, you have apparently digitized actors saying really ridiculous lines.
Posted 9 months ago # -
For some reason, the first thing that came to mind was "someone from the cast of Ferris Bueller's Day Off," either Matthew Broderick or Alan Ruck. Not sure why, since I don't think it'd actually work out well. But, you know, maybe Ben Stein. . . .
Jackie was actually in a Hollywood buddy cop movie in the 80s, The Protector. It soured him on Hollywood for something like a decade, because the American staff didn't give him the control he wanted. It's also a pretty bad movie.
Posted 9 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberHmmm, I haven't seen that, but it looks like the production company of The Protector was the same one for most of his Hong Kong movies (and curiously, the Cannonball Run movies). And his buddy was Danny Aiello? Yikes. He's good as a supporting character, but a little Danny Aiello goes a long way.
Posted 9 months ago # -
Well, I meant more that the American director didn't let him make a "Jackie Chan" movie. Wikipedia says Jackie even went and made his own version of the film. I wonder if it really was much better. The movie I saw (years ago on TV, I think) was pretty dismal not just as a martial arts movie--which it barely was--but as a movie in general. It would have needed a ton of rewriting to get any good.
Cannonball Run had Jackie in it, too, though it was a pretty minor role. Then again, it was a huge cast, so that played a part.
Posted 9 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberIt's just weird though that the company picked such a lousy director (he had never made anything good before or since, or ever), when they managed to get a pretty good one for The Cannonball Run, Hal Needham (who also directed the legendary Megaforce.). Indeed, that guy would have been perfect for a Jackie Chan movie, since he was a stuntman in his own right, and good at action-comedy movies (not so much at serious movies).
Posted 9 months ago # -
Maybe the director had a contract with them, and they had to give him the project. I recall reading once that Star Trek: Nemesis was directed by a guy who didn't know Star Trek at all (and didn't bother to do any research beforehand); he got the job pretty much just because Paramount was contractually obligated to have him direct something. Admittedly, they probably didn't hand him the keys to their biggest franchise without having some actual confidence in his work, but still, Nemesis did turn out to be a very weak ST film.
Megaforce was legendary? Good legendary or infamous legendary? Granted, I don't know much about the film, but I've always thought it was one of those movies that's only good for making fun of. I've only seen the first few minutes of it, but it looked, well, sort of like a toy commercial, albeit one with Lieutenant Ilia from ST:TMP in it. :)
Posted 9 months ago # -
JeremyR
MemberActually, it turns out that Megaforce was a co-production between Golden Harvest (the company that did virtually all the Jackie Chan movies) and some US Company (that was also behind the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie).
You wonder why they didn't have Jackie star in that? Or Burt Reynolds?
And what's hilarious is those two companies also teamed up to make this movie
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0083801/
Which featured dachshunds dressed up as giant rats. I need to see that.
Posted 9 months ago #
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