Robert here! Remember a few months ago when we all learned that Jack Nicholson was making a long-awaited return to the silver screen to star with Kristen Wiig in an American remake of bonkers German comedy Toni Erdmann? No, no, it was not a St. Elsewhere style coma dream. That possibly brilliant, possibly ill-advised project is still well underway, and there has been a new development: universally beloved and totally uncontroversial creator, writer, director, and star of HBO's Girls Lena Dunham and her co-writer Jenni Konner are in talks to pen the script. More after the jump...
If you recall this remake came about after Nicholson saw the film and was such a huge fan that he commissioned the project for himself the star in. Then Kristen Wiig got wrangled into it somehow. It is still in the very early stages of development, but the fact that it hasn't evaporated into "Wow remember when Jack Nicholson was going to star in a Toni Erdmann remake?" status yet leads me to believe we may soon be sitting in theaters watching Nicholson plop in some fake teeth and terrorize Wiig all over Romania.
Dunham and Konner's involvement is still in the early stages, but the mere mention of it has already garnered reaction from "What?" to "I wish I was dead." As I said about Nicholson and Wiig in the starring roles: if they are hell bent on remaking the movie, I actually think the Girls duo is an inspired choice for the job. Girls, as well as Dunham's debut feature film, Tiny Furniture, revels in the kind of odd, off-putting social situations that are the backbone of what makes Toni Erdmann such a special film. The characters Dunham creates (and some would say, Dunham herself), have a similar quality to the uncomfortable, boundary pushing persona at the center of the film.
I'm a firm believer that if you are going to remake a movie there needs to be a reason other than "I liked this in German so I'll do it in English." It needs to be tweaked, updated, reformed to fit the social and political climate of whatever country you're setting it in. In that regards, I think Dunham and Konner might be the women for the job.
Will all of that translate into a remake worthy of the effort? Do you hate or love the idea of Dunham's involvement?