General Motors is currently looking to bankroll a remake of the 1981 action comedy Cannonball Run in what will essentially end up being a two hour car commercial.
Vulture reports that the duo of Guy Ritchie and Brad Pitt are currently favored over Shawn Levy and Ben Stiller for the director and Burt Reynolds lead role.
There was talk earlier this year of Guy Ritchie being interested in remaking the original movie, which boasted an ensemble cast of Reynolds, Roger Moore, Farrah Fawcett, Dean Martin, Dom De Luise, Sammy Davis Jr., Terry Bradshaw and Jackie Chan, among others.
The plot is pretty basic and essentially a shortened version of 1963’s It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World, in which a group of eccentric competitors participate in an illegal cross-country car race, only in this case $350,000 isn't waiting at the finish line. The movie spawned a sequel which, let’s face it, we’ve all tried to push out of memory.
While the deal is "still evolving," GM wants to be more involved than just the usual soft product placement (i.e. Michael Bay’s Transformers franchise). GM is looking to have part of the movie filmed in Europe, presumably to showcase their UK-based Vauxhall and Germany-based Opel cars speeding across the speed-limitless German autobahn. In addition, the company is looking to showcase their 2014 car lineup, including a newly designed Corvette.
If the deal goes through, product placement in movies will have taken the next step; whether it’s forward or backward we’ll leave to you to decide.
Casting aside, does this movie sound interesting at all? Would you be willing to sit through a two-hour car commercial race movie?
