John Travolta Cut From Dallas

It looks like the upcoming Dallas movie is shifting gears from drama to comedy. As a result, Travolta has been axed from the project. We get the scoop today thanks to our friends at the moviehole:

According to The NY Post Travolta has been dumped from the long-gestating “Dallas” movie – which, at one time, Shirley MacLaine, Luke Wilson, Jennifer Lopez and Katie Cassidy were all attached to – in favour of everyone’s favourite funnyman, Ben Stiller.

I consider this news to be very bad. I do not want to see a Dallas remake like we saw with Starsky and Hutch. The Starsky and Hutch remake was funny enough, but you could have changed the names of the characters and switched the car for an El Camino and you would have had the same movie. If you are going to remake a TV show into a film, you should use the characters as they behaved in the original series. You can’t just throw a cowboy hat on Ben Stiller, call him J.R. and tell him to act like a jackass – what’s the point? Oh wait – money.

Travolta getting axed, is a dead canary in a coal mine as far as I am concerned. I am not enthused about the shift in direction this film is taking, but with so many changes taking place, who knows if it will ever make it to theaters. I am not a huge fan of Dallas, I will not lose sleep over this; but I feel for the fans of the series that may have been hoping to see new faces act out familiar characters, that they remember fondly.