I’m wondering whether we’re going to go through a phase where Hollywood digs through the archives of old dead people and finds new films to make from what they left behind. Recently we reported on new movement on a movie originated by Stanley Kubrick in the 1960s, Lunatic At Large, and now comes news that producer Paul Malansky (Police Academy) has dug out a script treatment by Bruce Lee and James Coburn (who would have both co-starred, if the movie had ever been made in Lee’s lifetime) and wants to turn it into a movie.
The film, called The Silent Flute, will be, according to Malansky (via Variety) epic martial arts adventure film that promises to honor Bruce Lees original artistic and philosophical conception. It also promises to reach new levels of action and adventure never before seen in martial arts filmmaking. Well, it is a producers job to spout hyperbole, but Malansky’s going a bit far with this one.
However this isn’t exactly new territory for Malansky, because in 1978 he produced Circle Of Iron, which was based on the same script treatment. In that film a young martial artist, Cord the Seeker, competes for and loses the right to go on a quest for the Book of All Knowlege held by a wizard named Zetan, but he goes along the path to seek Zetan anyway. Along the way, he meets strange tests and challenges by enemies and allies, which teach him about zen philosophy.
Malansky promises the new version will honour Lee’s vision, and he has funding for the project from Bey Logan’s B&E Studios.There’s little doubt Lee’s name still carries plenty of cachet, but I’m hoping this plundering of dead men’s unmade films doesn’t go on too long. People are already saying Hollywood has run out of ideas, and this is the sort of thing that seems to prove the point.