MORE FROM THE “COMPLETELY UNNECESSARY” FILES: THE STEVE-McQUEEN-ROLLS-OVER-IN-HIS-GRAVE EDITION

Now that Wolfgang Petersen has satisfactorily abused an ancient canonical work such as Homer’s The Iliad with his destruction of Troy, he’s apparently set his sights on kicking around a more recent film classic. Petersen with the support of Warner Bros. is planning to remake the 1968 “crime caper” Bullitt.

Bullitt was one of screen-legend Steve McQueen‘s most famous films, and the character of Frank Bullitt one of his most iconic. The movie (directed by Peter Yates) also has one of the best and most famous car chase sequences in film history, to my mind rivaling only the one from The French Connection and maybe the chase from Foul Play, the latter of which was obviously inspired by the sequence in in Yates’ film.

I understand the thinking behind all these remakes of movies that young audiences may never have seen, but it’s really so pointless. It’s not a new argument: Why remake a good movie? There are plenty of terrible movies that may have interesting concepts which can be revisited, hopefully for the better. But it’s Petersen’s desire to not even characterize this as a “remake” that bugs the crap out of me. He doesn’t even care about the plot; he wants to play with the damn character.

“Bullitt” is not about “remaking a film or repeating a plot, it is about reviving a great character,” Petersen said. “Frank Bullitt is a cool, no-nonsense man who doesn’t compromise. Bullitt walks is own path and his pursuit of the truth is unrelenting.”

Yeah, but Bullitt was also Steve McQueen! This isn’t like sticking Pierce Brosnan into a remake and reinvention of The Thomas Crown Affair. The first Thomas Crown was a perfectly fine movie and McQueen showed off his usual magnetic screen presence, but the very idea of what Steve McQueen became as a screen icon was solidified later that same year in Bullitt.

(Slight aside: It is interesting that the director of that remake was John McTiernan, who isn’t so different stylistically or in the types of films he makes from Petersen. And putting McTiernan and Petersen in the same class probably isn’t so different than putting Yates and the original Thomas Crown director Norman Jewison together.)

Almost as disturbing to me is the fact that McQueen’s son Chad who obviously is upset he hasn’t had the same career as his late father, will now try to make more money off his dad’s legacy by acting as a “co-producer” of the film. Chad, they’re not going to let you star in the role, even though I’m sure that would be your dream.
I doubt it’s a whole 60s/70s San Francisco cop-movie thing, but I’ll never say never. What I know is that I don’t particularly want to see another Dirty Harry, but if (god forbid) they make one, it better be while Clint is still alive and kicking well-enough to play “Dirty” Harry Callahan, and I don’t want to see anyone else playing Frank Bullitt.