Remakes are all the rage in Hollywood these days. Next up: An inexplicable mockumentary remake of 2007’s King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters.
Those of you with massive head trauma may not recall the film, so allow me to offer a primer: King of Kong is a documentary chronicling middle school teacher Steve Wiebe’s attempts to snatch the world record Donkey Kong high score from hot sauce mogul Billy Mitchell. Even without any added Hollywood-style dramatics, Wiebe’s fresh-faced optimism makes him a perfect hero and Mitchell couldn’t be more of a villain if he spent half the film twirling a moustache and cackling.
Critics widely hailed King of Kong, and the film is currently the best-reviewed videogame film in the history of the subgenre.
Over the last few years, director Seth Gordon has been involved in a number of high-profile film projects, most recently the big-budget comedy Horrible Bosses. It would seem that this time in Hollywood has rubbed off on Gordon, as he is now planning to remake King of Kong as a faux-documentary-style feature film.
Why? Gordon offers the following explanation:
I’ve done some work on “Modern Family” and “The Office” and have worked in this doc style, and so that inspired me to say, instead of doing a traditional narrative feature script, what if we did the remake in the doc style? What doors what that open? What opportunities? What additional story could we tell? And that’s essentially the approach we took.
The remake is currently in the very early planning stages, so there’s no official word on when it might see theaters.
When I was first presented with this story, my reaction was equal parts bewilderment and creative swears. I’m a big fan of the original King of Kong, and even the very concept of a remake screams “cynical cash-in.”
Of course, remaking it in faux-documentary style is just so incredibly precious that I want to pinch Gordon’s cheeks for coming up with the idea. If you’re going to blatantly prostitute your best work, you may as well be adorably meta about it.
