Garry Marshall, the director behind Pretty Woman, Beaches and Valentines Day is planning to remake the classic Seventies sitcom Laverne & Shirley with Jessica Biel and Jennifer Garner starring in the title roles.
Laverne & Shirley has one of the best opening credit songs of all time:
Casting Jennifer Garner and Jessica Biel as the lovable hairnet-wearing Milwaukee duo from the Shotz Beer factory is a greater tragedy than the entire cast of He’s Just Not That Into You – and do you remember the calibre of that ensemble?
Let me jog your memory:
Ben Affleck.
Jennifer Aniston.
Drew Barrymore.
Bradley Cooper.
Scarlett Johansson.
Justin Long.
That gives me chills…
Laverne & Shirley was a spinoff from Happy Days – on which the two gals were acquaintances of the Fonz which means they were cool. But they were also really endearing and awkward and amusing in that ‘bordering on madness’ way that some friends in real life tend to be. They communicated with their upstairs neighbors Lenny and Squiggy by screaming up the dumbwaiter shaft that connected the apartments.
Jennifer Garner I can kind of buy as Shirley, the cheerful perky-but-slightly-goofy one – since Garner has pretty much been type-case as the cheerful perky-but-slightly-goofy one ever since she quit Alias; but Biel as Laverne? Laverne picked up gang members and sailors from the dock and was a tough talking Brooklyn chick. Plus, Jessica Biel is generally a shit actress who is cruising by on her relationship with Justin Timberlake (he could do better) and her smoking hot bod.
Regardless of this terrifying casting proposition, the inevitable failure of this project comes down to the appalling track record of the sitcom-to-film adaptations that cinema history has left in its wake.
Exhibit A: The Beverly Hillbillies (shit. And has Ernest in it)
Exhibit B: Get Smart (luckily Don Adams didn’t live to see it)
Exhibit C: Josie And The Pussycats (contender for worst movie of all time)
Exhibit D: Bewitched (this never should have happened.)
Exhibit E: Miami Vice (Michael Mann, Jamie Foxx, Colin Farrell… enough said)
Coming Soon: The A Team Bradley Cooper = uh oh…
Let’s just hope Hollywood never gets the rights to Perfect Strangers
Don’t go changin, Balki.
Via The Playlist
