We have some news today about The Greatest American Hero film adaptation; the saucy scoop has been made available thanks to our friends at moviehole:
Was speaking to a casting director friend today, and we got onto the topic of Owen Wilson – that led to a discussion about “The Greatest American Hero” movie, which Wilson’s name has been linked to several times over the years. “Not anymore”, she said when asked whether the sad clown was still the frontrunner to play Ralph Hinkley in the upcoming film version. “They’re casting it for now – they’re open to an unknown”.
According to my friend-who-should-know, the film is quite different to the original series – not in tone, just in details. It’s still very much a comedy. She explained that the Ralph Hinkley of the film is “the most popular teacher at school, and has a real way with the kids – notably Josh, who is revealed to be Pam’s (the love interest from the original TV show) son”.
Adversary-wise, there’s your typical superhero villain (though nobody has seen the whole script, so nobody knows who or what it is), but also “Harve Lundy, a fat 35-year-old teacher at the same school as Ralph. His classroom has all the desks and seats at the back of the room and his desk is on a high platform overlooking them.”
When I hear that the film is quite different than the original series, flags star to fly and alarms star to buzz. If you are going to bring the series to the big screen, shouldn’t you tell the same story? If the only commonalities the two have with each other are a costume and a name – I am not interested. The story goes on to say that TGAH can burst into flames? Why would you add superpowers to the character in the first film?
What a super hero can do, what powers they possess is a very distinct fingerprint that sets them apart. Adding a power just to add more bothers me. It changes the dynamic of a character and really messes with their feel. Wikipedia lists the powers of TGAH as follows: super strength, resistance to injury, invisibility, precognition, telekinesis, remote viewing, super speed, X-ray vision, and psychometry. He also showed signs of being able to control minds when he was exposed to high doses of plutonium radiation. If they want to do a movie about a combustible super hero go ahead, write a film from scratch and ditch everything from The Greatest American Hero. He has enough powers – don’t turn him into the Human Torch.
I am highly skeptical of this project and by the sounds of it Owen Wilson should be glad he is out of the running.
