Bunch Gone Wild

Hey guys, it's Donnie...I've never been a huge fan of Westerns for some reason. Maybe it's just because most of them were made forever ago and, as a kid, I used to HATE watching movies that were more than like 10 years old. Don't worry, I've learned from the capricious nature of my youth. Nonetheless, I've yet to really catch up on the Western genre. In fact, I only own one, and that's only because a friend gave it to me when all my DVDs were stolen. That one western, however, is all kinds of awesome. The Wild Bunch: Sam Peckinpah's ultra-violent masterpiece, without a doubt one of the greatest westerns of all time. I have to give credit to any movie that coined the phrase, "If they move, shoot 'em." Badass.

And so of course Warner Brothers is looking to remake the film with David Ayer at the helm. The guy is a solid writer, but I'm reserving judgement on the man until I see his much-touted directorial debut Harsh Times, starring Christian Bale. However, I have to say that I'm more than slightly distraught to read that Ayer's version will apparantly be modernized and focus on "heists, drug cartels and the CIA." Boo to that, I say. The obvious comparison has been drawn between The Magnificent Seven and the original Seven Samurai, which did exactly what this film should be doing. If you wanna take the basic structure/premise of the original and update it, that's fine, but DO NOT call it The Wild Bunch, because you're now making a totally separate film. If you wanna remake The Wild Bunch, then I'll certainly grumble about it, but I suppose I'll get over it eventually, so long as you remain at least REMOTELY faithful to the original source material, i.e. make a fucking Western.