Foreign-language films get remade all the time by American studios hungry for new ideas. In fact, when I saw the moderately enjoyable, high-concept French-Canadian movie “Starbuck” (you can read my review here) earlier this year I kind of had a feeling it was only a matter of time before we got the goofy American version.
I had no idea that the turnaround would be this quick as Vince Vaughn takes over the role of sperm-donor extraordinaire David Wozniak from Patrick Huard.
The movie is now called “Delivery Man” and you can see the trailer here:
What is interesting about this particular remake other than the speed at which it is coming out is that it has the exact same writer and director as “Starbuck.” The apparent result is that Ken Scott has delivered the EXACT SAME MOVIE with the same scenes and same dialogue only with an American cast. Don’t believe me, check out the “Starbuck” trailer.
I understand why they did this, especially since Vaughn is a little more bankable than Huard and Americans hate to read; but the whole thing still feels really unnecessary.
“Starbuck” was a fairly decent movie and you have to wonder (financial considerations aside) about the artistic implications Scott faces by making the same movie twice. Does he think he can improve on it? What changes will he actually make? (I’m betting there’s a lot less soccer).
What if this happened more often? What if Quentin Tarantino had immediately remade “Pulp Fiction” in Korean? Would it change how we view the original version?
These are some big questions to ask about a dumb sperm-donor movie, but at the very least it makes it way, way more interesting than it otherwise would have been.
