Caffeinated Clint
Filmmaker P.J Pesce (“Lost Boys 2 : The Tribe”, “From Dusk Till Dawn 3 : The Hangman’s Daughter”) will helm “Smokin’ Aces : Blowback”.
The original film’s director Joe Carnahan announced the appointment via his (soon-to-end) blog.
Says Smokin’ Joe, “The ‘Smokin’ prequel is headed to Vancouver B.C. this weekend. It’s being helmed by my new best friend PJ Pesce who did the Lost Boys sequel last year. I thought I could geek out
with the best of them in terms of film lore but PJ is even more of idiot savant than me. I
think he’s going to do a great f*cking job. If you want to check out how truly whacked he is,
go on Youtube and look up ‘The Adventures of Chico and Guapo.’ He’s perfect for this material.”
Now, no hating on Pesce (like most ill-advised readers are in the comments section of Carnahan’s site) – like a lot of you already are. It really isn’t his fault his last flick didn’t blow you away like you wanted it too. If there were problems Warner’s DTV “Lost Boys 2” – and he’ll be the first to admit there were problems with it – then it wasn’t so much to do with him as it was the studio – who wouldn’t open their wallets very wide when it came to financing the highly-anticipated sequel (and let’s not waggle the blame finger away from Corey Haim either) nor did they give him much time to shoot it. Pesce made the best film he could’ve on the coupla-million the studio gave him. He did his job -based on the circumstances, he did it well. Not easy trying to give people a good movie, let alone a big-time sequel, on a few bucks and half-a-month of filming space. So the flaming stops here. And here. And again here.
Fortunately, Carnahan says he’s working hand-in-hand with Pesce on the development of the “Smokin’ Aces” follow-up so I’d say this is much more than a ‘gun for hire’ job for the latter. He’ll actually have a say in this, and is no doubt a little more jazzed about the project as a consequence. And I know some of the producers and how excited they are about the project. They – and Universal – are no doubt all about making the best product possible for the home entertainment market.
No idea which characters from the original will return – it’d be great to see Joel Edgerton’s ‘Russian’ chap return, he was terrific, and maybe even Pete Berg? – nor the storyline.
Universal have done some rather fun direct-to-video sequels – off-the-top-of-my-head, “Time Cop : Berlin Decision”, “American Pie : Band Camp”, the “Tremors” sequels, “White Noise : The Light” – and I’ve a feeling this one might just turn out OK too.
