Much to the horror of action fans around the world, it was announced only a few days ago that Twentieth Century Fox are planning to remake one of the most well loved action films of all time, Commando; the movie that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger as John Matrix, a retired special forces colonel on a mission to rescue his daughter (who was played by a very young Alyssa Milano, who was only 12 at the time), after some other, ex-special forces, types kidnap her, in order to try and force him into assassinate a political figure.
In the original, Schwarzenegger’s Matrix dove off a plane just before takeoff (the plane that was supposed to transport him to where he would assassinate the political figure), and proceeded to maim, kill, and generally blow up, everything on camera (and probably dozens of things out of shot as well), in order to get his daughter back; with some fairly unbelievable action, and whilst spouting a myriad of bad puns along the way; it was as daft as about ten brushes, and couldn’t be taken seriously at all, but people the world over still love Commando, 25 years after its original release, because it was done with such a sense of fun and excitement, that it was hard not to like.
The plot of Fox’s planned remake hasn’t been confirmed, although it has been announced that David Ayer (former Navy soldier and writer of Training Day) will be writing the script; to which he hopes to add a real-world element (which some people may find amusing, as despite the fact that he served in the Navy, he wrote the screenplay for U-571, which has been referred to several times as the most historically inaccurate film of all time, and even had Tony Blair complaining to Bill Clinton about it) , and make the character of John Matrix less brawny, and have him finding a stealthier solution to the problem, by focussing more on covert tactics and weaponry.
Other than that, the main shell of the original story will remain roughly in tact; with a retired special forces operative’s daughter being kidnapped as a means of blackmailing him into committing murder; and the film will not only be written by David Ayer, but also directed by him, although there are no words on any cast members just yet, or whether or not the fun tone of the original (and the puns) will remain intact.
Fox is also currently in the marketing stage for another Arnie reboot; in the form of Predators, which takes the alien hunters, that were first seen in 1987‘s Predator, back into the jungle, and will be released this July; and there’s no doubt that there will be a great deal of competition for the role of John Matrix, as the original Commando helped make Schwarzenegger’s career what it is, and could potentially do the same for another, up-and-coming, action star; just as Commando’s sequel (which was turned down by Arnold, and eventually rewritten into what became Die hard) did for Bruce Willis.
