Gerard Butler in Talks To Take Over Patrick Swayze's Iconic Surfer Role in 'Point Break' Remake (Exclusive)

Ugh. Horrible idea.


http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/gerard-butler-talks-take-patrick-669522

Gerard Butler in Talks To Take Over Patrick Swayze's Iconic Surfer Role in 'Point Break' Remake (Exclusive)


The Scottish actor may be catching a wave in the remake of the 1991 Keanu Reeves-Patrick Swayze action movie, directed by Ericson Core.

Gerard Butler is in final negotiations to star in Alcon’s remake of early 1990s classic surf film, Point Break.


The movie is eyeing a summer shoot with Ericson Core, the cinematographer behind 2001’s The Fast & The Furious and Daredevil, in the director’s chair.

Kurt Wimmer wrote the screenplay for the new film, which is set in in the international world of extreme sports as opposed to the Southern California surf scene of the original. The plot of an FBI agent infiltrating a crime ring remains the same as are the names of the principal characters.

Butler will play Bodhi, an expert extreme sports athlete who also seeks to find nirvana through the conquest of a series of athletic feats such as surfing 100-waves. He saves Johnny Utah, the undercover FBI agent, and brings him into the fold of international criminals. The part of Utah is not cast.

Patrick Swayze played the part in the 1991 movie directed by Kathryn Bigelow.

Broderick Johnson and Andrew Kosove are producing along with Michael DeLuca, John Baldecchi, Chris Taylor and Wimmer.

Break is likely to solidify Butler’s dance card for the year. He will first shoot Liongate’s epic fantasy Gods of Egypt, which start shooting in March, and close out the year with London is Falling, the sequel to his surprise action hit Olympus Has Fallen.

This won't be the first time that he has had to wear a wetsuit onscreen, following his role as real-life surfer Frosty Hesson in 2012's Chasing Mavericks.

Butler is repped by CAA and Alan Siegel Entertainment.

Why remake? Why all the remakes?

Wow. Check out the article in the LA Times today.....


http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-gerard-butler-point-break-remake-fan-reaction-20140109,0,2646237.story#axzz2pxLX8215



Gerard Butler eyes 'Point Break' remake; fans call bogus

Surf's up for action star Gerard Butler, who is poised to star in a remake of the 1991 thriller "Point Break," which memorably featured Keanu Reeves as an FBI agent infiltrating a gang of bank-robbing surfer dudes led by Patrick Swayze's laid-back Bodhi.

According to the Hollywood Reporter, Butler is in final negotiations to play the nirvana-seeking criminal Swayze made popular in a new remake from Alcon Entertainment and Warner Bros. The movie will feature some surfing but will also be set in the broader world of international extreme sports. Reeves' character, Johnny Utah, has yet to be cast.

Over the years the original film, directed by Kathryn Bigelow, has become something of a classic of junk cinema with its totally-'90s surf slang, over-the-top stunts, gunplay and bromantic overtones. It has also been kept alive in the public consciousness via "Point Break Live," an absurdist interactive stage adaptation that started in Seattle in 2003 and has played in Los Angeles, Orange County, San Francisco and New York.

The prospect of a new "Point Break" film raises the question of whether it's sacrilegious to remake such cult favorites, or if their inherent ridiculousness makes them fair game. Either way, Butler's first outing in a surf film won't inspire much confidence: His "Chasing Mavericks" bombed in 2012 and earned dismal reviews.

Ericson Core, who will direct the new "Point Break," has some action movie bona fides, but as a cinematographer, for films such as "The Fast & the Furious" and "Daredevil;" as a director his biggest credit is the underdog football movie "Invincible."
Working on "Chasing Mavericks," Butler nearly drowned when he wiped out in the face of a massive wave. Let's hope he and his movie fare better this time around.

Incidentally, fans of the original "Point Break" were hardly optimistic. Reaction to the news was swift and merciless on Twitter, with many devotees of the original voicing displeasure at the idea of Butler taking up the Bodhi mantle. Here's a sampling:

(Click the link to read the examples. For some reason I can't get that part of the story to copy and paste)

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/movies/moviesnow/la-et-mn-gerard-butler-point-break-remake-fan-reaction-20140109,0,2646237.story#ixzz2pxdkKJvp

http://www.avclub.com/article/the-point-break-remake-knows-you-want-gerard-butle-106820?utm_medium=RSS

The Point Break remake knows you want Gerard Butler so bad it's like acid in your mouth


Since 2011, we have been catching the tasty wave that is the Point Break remake—a wave that is also a metaphor for the inexorable sweep of history’s tide and the men who dare to ride atop it spouting quasi-Zen koans, as updated for the extreme sports world of the 21st century. Now the little hand says it’s time to choose a new Patrick Swayze, one who can lead director/super-fast processor Ericson Core in this skydiving game of chicken that is remaking a movie so perfectly of its era, and so perfectly, irreplaceably dumb. And according to The Hollywood Reporter, it’s meat waffle Gerard Butler, who’s said to be in "final negotiations" to play the character whose name is still “Bodhi,” because Patrick Swayze is dead and can’t say anything about it.

No doubt summoned out of thin, musky air by the mere utterance of the words “extreme sports movie,” Butler will draw on his experience in the surfing drama Chasing Mavericks—as well the approximately half-dozen other Gerard Butler-plus-sports equipment movies he’s taken on of late—to assume the role of the philosophical, extreme sports-loving criminal, who becomes both the target and the man-crush of FBI agent Johnny Utah. That role has yet to be filled, contingent on producers finding an actor who can replicate Keanu Reeves’ befuddled charisma, such as someone who’s just emerged from oral surgery.

Video clips at link:

http://www.grantland.com/blog/hollywood-prospectus/post/_/id/97095/gerard-butler-will-probably-be-the-new-patrick-swayze-in-the-point-break-remake


Gerard Butler Will Probably Be the New Patrick Swayze in the Point Break Remake
By Mark Lisanti on January 9, 2014 1:30 PM ET
Kevork Djansezian/Getty/Twentieth Century Fox

Please accept our humble invitation to a brief thought experiment. Are you in? Of course you are. You are good people with open minds. Now watch this video of Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze jumping out of an airplane and falling to Earth for a length of time that suggests a departure point 500 miles into the void of outer space:

Did you watch it? At least a few minutes? Good. Thanks for staying with us.

Now close your eyes. Clear your mental palate and forget about what you may or may not think you've already seen in the above headline. Ready?

Substitute any working actor for Patrick Swayze. Now substitute another. Let's go for three. You game for three? Five is just two more. Twenty-five is just another 20 more! You'd be crazy not to imagine 25 actors who might make a good philosopher-criminal with a taste for the surf in (another) totally unnecessary remake of a modern Swayze classic.

Now answer this quick question: Were any of the actors you imagined this guy?

Are you now imagining Gerard Butler stimulating Reeves via remote-controlled panties? If so, we apologize. That's not the experiment, but we can see how that might have happened. Is that happening to us right now? Let's not dwell on it, but Keanu's impishly sexy giggles will echo inside our romantic mind-restaurants for as long as we daydream.

Let's return to the results of the original task.

None of the 25 actors you placed in that scene was Gerard Butler, even if you set aside the clip we provided and remembered that he has recently done a surfing movie. Possibly among those you may have considered before Butler: Robert Downey Jr., Colin Farrell, Dax Shepard, Jane Lynch, Ken Jeong, Haley Joel Osment, Jennifer Aniston, Manny from Modern Family.

That your brain did not produce Gerard Butler during this experiment is not a failure of your imagination. If anything, this is a failure of Hollywood's imagination, and it's happening anyway, as if they somehow took our worst-case-scenario musings as inspiration. Soon the contract will be signed and Butler will be sitting in meetings to discuss which rubber mask of a U.S. president he’ll wear during a bank robbery, and things will get contentious when he insists that Muhammad Ali once held our highest office.

Let's meet back here whenever they get around to botching the recasting of Johnny Utah and run this test again. We promise not to bring up Keanu in remote-controlled panties for that one. Well, promise is a strong word.

Lainey weighs in......

http://www.laineygossip.com/Gerard-Butler-in-talks-to-remake-Point-Break/29080#.UtBzbLtgpiU.twitter

More like POINTLESS Break

The Golden Age of Sh*tastic Action Movies (1984-1991) is marked by certain watershed films: Exterminator 2, Miami Connection, Invasion: USA, Gymkata, Bloodsport, Kickboxer, and, of course, the greatest achievements in sh*tastic action filmmaking, Road House and Point Break. You can’t replicate the conditions that existed in the 1980s which made this magnificent time in cinema possible, mostly because importing that much cocaine is a class-one felony. But Alcon Entertainment is going try, attempting to recreate lightning in a bottle by remaking Kathryn Bigelow’s sh*tastic action movie classic, Point Break.

If you haven’t seen Point Break…I don’t even know how to finish that sentence. If you haven’t seen Point Break you’re either a cyborg or a monster; either way I wash my hands of you. Bodhi, Johnny Utah, the Ex-Presidents, one of the greatest chase scenes of all time—Point Break is just the right combination of good filmmaking + total f*cking dumbassness. It was the pinnacle, the crowning achievement of a glorious era, and anyone attempting to remake it should promptly be set ablaze. I mean, the only rational response to the words, “Let’s remake Point Break” exiting a human mouth is to set the speaker of that foul language on fire while slowly backing away.

But it’s happening. Point Break is being remade, except this time Bodhi, the bank robbing surfer immortalized by Patrick Swayze, is going to be an “extreme sports enthusiast”, and it will be directed by Ericson Core, who is either a micro-processor or a piece of exercise equipment. The most insulting thing, though, is that none other than Spittle himself, Gerard Butler, is in talks to play Bodhi. Basically, Point Break is being remade as a Fast & Furious rip-off (and that movie was already conceived as a Point Break homage) directed by a treadmill and starring Spittle. You bring the matches, I’ll bring the gasoline. Together we will burn this unholy venture to the ground.

Attached – Butler looking like a douchebag last month in Miami.

http://www.theinertia.com/surf/an-open-letter-to-gerard-butler-point-break-remake-im-just-going-to-fck-you-up/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

An Open Letter to Gerard Butler: Point Break Remake? I’m Just Going to F*ck You Up


Hey Gerard Butler, I have a bone to pick with you. You seem like a pretty nice, intelligent guy. Great beard growing capabilities, by the way. Also, even though they were CGI’d or something, your abs in 300 turned me into a giggling school girl or a jealous high school kid. Not sure which. It was very confusing.

Anyway, here’s my point of contention. I heard recently that you’re going to star in a Point Break movie. What in God’s name makes you think that a Point Break remake or a Point Break II is a good idea? Did you watch the original? Does it seem remake-able? There are only a few movies that sit in Point Break’s realm of perfection. True Romance, for one (I will personally lead an assassination attempt on who ever decides that’s a good idea, by the way). Starship Troopers. Cocktail, Days of Thunder, and Top Gun. Notice anything? All cult classics, and all off limits to remakes and sequels, Gerard.

Rumor has it that you’re going to play Bodhi. You’re good, G (can I call you that?), but you’re no Swayze. Take a look in the mirror. See that handsome mug staring back at you? IT’S NOT SWAYZE’S MUG. Go watch Roadhouse. Go watch Ghost. Then go watch Chasing Mavericks and P.S I Love You. I dare you to sit through P.S. I Love You. How much did you hate filming that? Did you hate it as much as I hated watching the first 20 minutes before I threw up in my mouth and stabbed my eyes out with my own thumbs?

You’re a real blue flame special, aren’t you, son? Young, dumb, and full of cum, I know. Guess we must just have ourselves an asshole shortage, huh?

How much did they offer you for a Point Break remake, anyways? I hope it was enough to retire on. Actually, it probably is. It’s probably enough for a lot of people to retire on all at once. Come to think of it, you made enough to retire on with P.S. I Love You, didn’t you? Ugh, Hollywood is awful. They should have taken money from everyone involved in that movie and publicly shamed them in Times Square.

This is not some job, flipping burgers at the local drive-in, Gerard. Yes, your surfboard bothers me. And yes, your approach to this whole damn movie bothers me.

So you’re not worried about money, unless you have a secret gambling/substance/sex addiction, which would be pretty awesome (not for you, but for the hungry public who feeds off the misfortunes of celebrities like you). You clearly like movies, because you are an actor. You like surfing, or so I’ve heard. So what are you doing? You’re shitting on something beautiful! Point Break is beautiful! You’re shitting on it! Why would you shit on it!?

I just don’t understand. You wouldn’t re-paint the Mona Lisa, would you? Would you rebuild the Eiffel Tower? Yeah, I compared Point Break to the Mona Lisa (Tyler Endicott’s smile is almost as mysterious) and the Eiffel Tower (Gary Busey’s teeth are almost as tall).

Whatever, Gerard. Do what you want (don’t do what you want, not in this case). Shit on Swayze’s grave (don’t actually shit on his grave). I don’t care (I do care). But I promise you this: If I ever run into you at a beach shower at Latigo (long workable rights), I won’t tell you that locals rule, and that yuppie insects like you shouldn’t be making this movie, because THAT would beeee a waste of time. I’m just going to f**k you up. (Not really. It’s a movie quote… IF YOU SAW THE PERFECT, UN-REMAKEABLE FILM Point Break, you’d know that. And what are you scared of, anyways? Didn’t you see your abs in 300?).