I didn’t think THE PINK PANTHER remake with Steve Martin was a total failure but I didn’t think it was a success worthy of a sequel either. How wrong I was. Columbia is moving forward with THE PINK PANTHER 2 and has hired Lowell Ganz and Babaloo Mandel to write a new script. Ganz and Mandel are highly sought after rewriters in Hollywood yet the movies they’ve rewritten include KANGAROO JACK, FEVER PITCH and FAT ALBERT (though I’m inclined to say those movies were doomed long before either of these writers came aboard). Steve Martin will again return to star and the studio is in negotiations with Shawn Levy (NIGHT AT THE MUSEUM) to once again direct. No word yet on what sort of plot we might expect in the sequel though I can imagine there will be bumbling, stumbling and (from me) grumbling. Martin is currently on a break after the last PANTHER movie and PANTHER 2 is expected to be his next film.