Caffeinated Clint
“Mannequin” – that late 80s critical dartboard that raced up the charts faster than Starship’s ‘’No Protection” album – is the latest Reagan-era favourite to go the remake route.
The newly relaunched Gladden Entertainment are said to be in early development on the redo of the ‘window dresser goes gaga for loose doll’ comedy.
Naturally, the company – who, back in the day, also produced “The Fabulous Baker Boys”, “Weekend at Bernie’s”, and Christian Slater/Skateboarding pic “Gleaming the Cube” – want to contemporize the plot (Maybe it won’t be a store Mannequin but a laser display hologram he falls for? ) and will likely cast a couple of hot Twilight-esque youngsters in the lead roles.
(And can only assume some hot punk band will cover the Oscar Nominated theme song “Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now”!)
The shingle are said to be in early talks with studios, and are on the hunt for a writer.
Laugh, laugh away – but I absolutely loved “Mannequin” when I first saw it (Saw it first weekend when it was released in theaters in 1987). I don’t know whether it was because I was a fan of anything and everything a Brat Packer did at that time (Andrew McCarthy was the star of this), or whether I was just an easy to please teenager, or maybe it was all the infectious pop tunes flittered throughout the film (Belinda Carisle did the opening track, Starship’s ‘Nothing’s Gonna Stop Us Now’ was the theme song), but at the time, it was the ‘French Connection’ of ‘Plastic Bitches’ movies.  Such an easy movie to watch. And tell me Kim Cattrall wasn’t just totally adorable in it? (She undid her squeaky clean image with her, er, showy part in “Masquerade”, opposite Rob Lowe, a couple of years later. And, of course, is now best known for being anything but, er, clean – playing Samantha in the “Sex and the City” series, and films). And you can’t go wrong with a nasty James Spader (he and McCarthy seemed glued at the hip in the 80s – this was the middle film of a three-pic deal they united on that started with “Pretty in Pink” and ended with “Less than Zero”).
I do cringe a tad when I watch the film now – it is awfully tacky, the jokes fall flat, and it’s pretty much all style over substance – but that’s not to say I still don’t enjoy it. It’s definitely a prime candidate for a second round of ‘So Bad It’s Good’ entries (should I ever do one).  And again, Cattrall -= cuuuuuuute here.
Next to the 1991 sequel “Mannequin 2 : On The Move” though, “Mannequin” looks like “To Sir With Love”. One of the worst follow-ups ever made, the VHS-premiering sequel starred William ‘Herman’s Head’ Ragsdale in the McCarthy role, and Kristy ‘Buffy’ Swanson in Cattrall’s part. The only returning cast member from the first film was the flamboyantly irritating Mesach Taylor, as window-dresser extraordinaire, Hollywood (wonder who will play Hollywood in the sequel!? Perez Hilton available for acting work?!).  It you thought the plot of the first was hideous – – you need to see what goes down in the sequel. Aaargh. Seriously, the less said about this one the better.
