Some people remember “Red Dawn” as an Eighties classic powered by Cold War paranoia. Others think back to recent events and recall that it was one of the greatest films in the career of recently-deceased Patrick Swayze. Still others may remember it as the first movie to ever be released with a PG-13 rating.
The truth is, it’s all of the above. And now, it’s also a remake.
“I’m working on ‘Red Dawn’ right now, up in Michigan,” explained “Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant” star Josh Hutcherson when we caught up with him recently. “It’s going great. We blew up all of downtown Detroit last week. It was pretty epic.”
Co-starring such up-and-comers as Isabel Lucas, Josh Peck and Chris “Soon to be Thor” Hemsworth, the flick could do for those actors what the 1984 original did for the likes of Swayze, Jennifer Grey, Charlie Sheen, Lea Thompson and other icons of that decade.
“Yeah, there is pressure,” Hutcherson said of remaking a classic. “But so far, I’ve had a lot of great support. And everybody’s loving it and loving the new story line. We’ve changed up quite a bit of stuff. The Chinese are invading now, instead of the Russians. But the heart of the movie is there, and that’s what’s really important.”
“I’m based on C. Thomas Howell’s character, Robert,” explained the 17-year-old, who also starred in “Journey to the Center of the Earth” with Brendan Fraser. “In the story, I start out as not a geek, but sort of a tech guy. And by the end, I’m a total warrior, drinking blood from the animals and going crazy.”
We’d expect nothing less from a remake of a film that, when it was released, was entered into the Guinness Book of records as having the most acts of violence on camera, ever. “We shot a scene where where we blew the face off this giant building,” Hutcherson marveled, remembering a recent day on the set of the November 2010 release. “It was a giant, probably 200-foot high mushroom cloud of flames engulfing downtown Detroit! That was really cool.”
Are you eager to see a “Red Dawn” remake based on Hutcherson’s comments? Or is it one of those classics that should be left alone?
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