Lacey Bridges
A few days back it was announced that Joe Carnahan and Frank Grillo would direct and star in, respectively, a remake of Indonesian action hit “The Raid”.
At the time Carnahan (“Smokin’ Aces”, “The Grey”) was tight-lipped on details, promising to reveal more soon. This week, in an interview with Collider, he did that.
The filmmaker says his reason for wanting to remake the martial-arts actioner is because many westerners have never seen the original.
GRILLO: Many Americans, most Americans, have never seen The Raid before.
CARNAHAN: By the way, Smokin’ Aces is about an assault on a penthouse with a bunch of crazy people fighting their way up to the top. That was six years before The Raid was made. So it’s not like these are things that don’t interest me. I can show you a pattern. I dig that kind of an idea.
GRILLO: And I’ll tell you something that bothers me. When people say you’re doing to do “The Hollywood Version” of The Raid–
CARNAHAN: Or whitewash it.
GRILLO: First of all, we’re not the Hollywood version of anything. We come through the back door all the time. I’m not Tom Cruise. I’m not the Hollywood version. I’m not knocking Tom Cruise, but he’s Tom Cruise. He gets to do whatever he wants. So my point is we don’t have to do this. We can do anything we want to do. We want to do this because there’s something we see that we want to show to American audiences, and audiences globally. Many people have not seen The Raid.
CARNAHAN: Among cinephiles, it’s a beloved film. But people in Des Moines, Iowa have not seen The Raid.
Carnahan, who is attached to direct the third “Bad Boys” film sometime in the future too, shed light on the film’s setting.
CARNAHAN: [It’s set in] Caracas. Because Caracas is a madhouse. It’s almost like a safehouse for bad guys, like they built this block in Caracas because this is where you come to do business and no one will fuck with you. Because it’s such a dangerous place, nobody wants to go in there. Again, it’s heightening elements of The Raid that were already there, I’m taking these story elements and kind of weaponizing them. Just giving them a shot of steroids, because again everything is about zagging—where The Raid zigged, we’ll zag.
Original “The Raid” star Iko Uwais has expressed interest in being involved in some capacity:
GRILLO: I did a movie with Iko. I’m friends with Iko. Iko may be in this movie. We don’t know… So Iko and I did a movie in Indonesia last year. It’s a big kind of sci-fi movie, and I don’t know where it’s going to come out, when it’s going to come out, but Iko and I became best friends. We became brothers. And he’s my boy. When he heard this, he reached out to immediately and said, “Is there a place for me in the movie?” This is the guy who originated the role, and was the star in both movies–it’s a film that everyone wants to be involved in, even the guy who is the guy. So maybe. Joe said maybe there’s a world where he’s one of the other guys. Who knows.
The film, which Carnahan hopes to do for just $20 million, will likely go ahead very soon with the filmmaker adding “I’m writing the script right now, so I want it to go ASAP.”
