It’s time to once again race from coast to coast! That’s right fans…a new installment of the popular Cannonball Run film series is in the works at Warner Brothers, who recently acquired the rights to the franchise.
For those unfamiliar, The Cannonball Run was a 1981 film that featured an all-star ensemble cast including Burt Reynolds, Dom DeLuise, Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Farrah Fawcett, and Jackie Chan just to name a few. The premise was a car race from Connecticut to California and featured the ensemble in a series of misadventures along the way. The film was such a huge hit that in 1984, a sequel was made with some of the original cast returning along with more all-stars including the Chairman himself, Frank Sinatra. Then, in 1989, Orion Pictures made the official third installment of the series, Speed Zone, which featured a new ensemble including John Candy, Eugene Levy, Donna Dixon, The Smothers Brothers, and others. Hal Needham directed the first two films with Jim Drake directing Speed Zone, in which Jamie Farr returned from the original two films as “The Sheik”.
A little trivia is that Jackie Chan loved seeing the outtakes for the first film and it became his influence to include outtakes of his films when he returned to Hong Kong.
With Warner Brothers acquiring the rights to the franchise, they have made the announcement that they will be not remaking, not rebooting, but rather “relaunch” the series with Etan Cohen as both writer and director of the new installment, which will look to have the original title name only. Cohen co-wrote the hit comedies Tropic Thunder and Get Hard, with directing the latter. Producing the new film will be Andre Morgan and Alan Gasmer.
So now the question is: Who would you personally like to see in the new Cannonball Run?
H/T: Variety
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