His brother Ridley is busy returning to his own past classics with follow-ups to Alien and Blade Runner, and now Tony Scott wants to revisit someone else’s classic with a remake of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch. He’s moving forward with Hell’s Angels, which is likely to be his next movie, according to Deadline.
Back in January it was revealed that The Wild Bunch was one of several Warner Bros. titles the studio is keen on remaking, although there hasn’t been much more info about the project until now. Brian Helgeland will write the screenplay for this do-over, which is still in early development, and will now be done under Tony Scott’s supervision. Although Peckinpah was known for his no-hold barred filmmaking, whether Scott’s hyperbolic style will fit a remake of the western is difficult to know.
As for Hell’s Angels, Scott has been working on that movie for quite a while, and it seems he’s now ready to go forward with the flick. He wants Jeff Bridges to star in the biker drama, which is about the 2001 Laughlin riots, where the angels motorcycle gang became embroiled in a war with rival bikers, The Mongols. Jeff Bridges – if he comes onboard – would play Hell’s Angels leader Sonny Barger, who also develops a friendship with a young drifter mechanic. However, it Scott has his heart set on Bridges, Hell’s Angels won’t be able to shoot until next spring, as Jeff has RIPD and Seventh Son to film first.
There’s also Scott’s return to his own past glory, with his reinvention of Top Gun still a high priority for the filmmaker, although it isn’t clear how close that is to getting in front of the camera. It’s also uncertain what’s happened to several other movies that were on Scott’s plate, including Potzdamer Platz (which seemed to be nearly ready to go into production earlier this year) and an adaptation of John Grisham’s novel The Associate.