Ow…this hurts my brain…
THR has news that Sony has a re-imagining of the Charles Dickens‘ novel Oliver Twist in the works called DODGE AND TWIST. The idea comes from Ahmet Zappa (yes they are related) and his company Monsterfoot Productions will be helping to produce.
DODGE AND TWIST “takes pickpocketing rivals Oliver Twist and Artful Dodger and re-imagines them 20 years down the road. The two are on opposite sides of the law and get embroiled in an affair to steal the Crown,” and may have a similar tone/style as the Robert Downey Jr. lead SHERLOCK films. Writing the script is Cole Haddon, creator of the new NBC show Dracula. The movie is not associated at all with the graphic novel of the same name by Tony Lee.
This is only slightly less ridiculous than the 3-D parkour version of Oliver Twist that Red Bull is (or was?) planning. When people like to complain about Hollywood not having any original ideas it is movies like this that help support their argument. DODGE AND TWIST may turn out to be a fun 19th century heist movie, but couldn’t we get the film without it being associated to Oliver Twist? I’d watch an original heist movie set during that time period, wouldn’t you? Is it because there’s such little faith in the writers out there to deliver something unique or is it purely because the studio is chasing dollar signs?
This isn’t the first case of a classic novel being updated/re-imagined and I’m sure it won’t be the last.