There have been rumours for a while that Mannequin might be getting a remake, and those have now been confirmed, as Moviehole reports that Gladden Entertainment (a relaunched version of the company behind the original) is currently shopping a new verion of 1987 movie around to studios, in the hope that one of them will bite.
Mannequin starred Andrew McCarthy as a young artist called Jonathan, who builds an shop dummy he thinks is so beautifuly that he falls in love with it. The Mannequin then comes to life in the form of Kim Cattrall (she’s supposed to be the spirit of an ancient Egyptian or something) and the two end up in a battle with a rival department store.
Although it was critically mauled (and it certainly hasn’t stood the test of time well, seeming even sillier now than it did at the time), Mannequin was a commercial success and so Gladden hopes to contemporise the plot and cash-in on Hollywood’s current craze for remaking every 80s. Although the original was amazingly stupid, with quite a lot of creepy undertones that it never fleshed out, there’s no reason an update can’t work. After all, it wouldn’t be any stupider than half of the movies Tinsel Town produces for teens and while the original might not have been great, it is a concept that could work okay if done well.
At the moment the project is in the very early stages, with no studio backing and no writers yet assigned, so we’ll have to wait and see if it actually happens.