Everybody Cut Loose…and Run from Efron Footloose Remake

Zac Efron, pretty and well-behaved. 

I find it so discouraging that Zac Efron is, as Variety reports, set to star in a remake of the oh so ’80s classic Footloose. Apparently Paramount doesn’t agree, as they are fastracking the production.

Kenny Ortega will direct and Peter Sollett is rewriting the original. Although there will be new songs, some from the original may be included in the remake. The original film’s megaselling soundtrack included hits such as the title track, “Almost Paradise,” “Let’s Hear It for the Boy,” and “Holding Out for a Hero.”

As if you need a reminder, the plot deals with a city kid who moves to a country town and finds out dancing has been banned. He tries to organize a prom and teach the other kids how to dance.

A lot of the charm of the original was that the kids in the film–including Kevin Bacon looking a LOT younger than he actually was–weren’t professional dancers. They were just actors who, when called upon, danced like normal teens, including Bacon, although in one scene he does have a very noticeable double handle some acrobatic moves for him (and again, he also wasn’t a teen. Come on, he played a college studen in Animal House six years before). The film also wasn’t a musical–all those songs on the soundtrack were just background. I guess in the remake, though, they’ll have everyone sing new poppy songs, and of course all the actors, like Efron–who decidedly lacks Bacon’s edginess–will be very slick, clean-scrubbed dancing and singing types. It will no doubt be bright, shiny, colorful, and cheerfully dull.

Just for fun, here’s the trailer for the 1984 original: