Smokey and the Bandit 4000

[Beauregard Special]

I saw this 'round the grapevine and got a little scared. Have a look-see for yourselves:

Fourth Smokey and the Bandit in the works

Posted by Clint Morris on February 20, 2004

Australian Writer/Director Tim McLaughlan chewed the fat with Movieweb telling them a little bit about his plans for a fourth “Smokey and the Bandit†movie, ingeniously called “Smokey and the Bandit 4000â€.

The film, which is in pre-production, won’t centre on the same ‘Bandit’. “We plan on opening with a shot of Burt. Then the line, “After two-thousand years of Evolution and hard core drinking, this is the man who carries the Bandit legacy into the future!†We then cut to a chubby wreck of a man in a hunting jacket, his trucker hat loosely hanging off his head. His eyes are red and sunk into the back of his skull. He is not smiling. This new Bandit is a drunk. A bumbler. He basically bumbles about in a Scotch-induced haze. He knocks a lot of stuff over. It’s pretty funnyâ€, says McLaughlan.

So who would be playing the new ‘Bandit’? “Well, if we can convince Vince Vaughn to bulk-up a bit. Him, with that mustache, it works. We’re in talks now. We’re also looking at Mark Addy. He could nail it, I think…It’ such a diverse cut between the two, but he can carry that Burt swagger. It’s that clear line of evolution. Addy, in that red shirt and cowboy hat? Give him the mustache…That’s going to be some funny ****. But Vaughn, I think he may be the only one capable of winking directly at the audience, like The Bandit is prone to do on occasion.â€

And ‘Smokey’? “We initially wanted Cedric the Entertainer, but now that he’s doing The Honeymooners, he doesn’t want to pre-associate himself that closely with Jackie Gleason. He doesn’t want to do two Gleason roles back-to-back. He loved our script, but The Honeymooners was closer to going in front of the camera, so he jumped on that one. We’ve discussed getting a real redneck type instead. We want to keep it true to the roots of Buford. It would have been funny if his descendant was a black guy, cause Sheriff Justice was such a bigot, but then we’re faced with yells of ‘stunt-casting’. So, right now, we’re trying to get Woody Harrelson. He’s the guy we want right now. See, the Bandit’s going to be a thick guy with a bit of a beer gut on him. But the Sheriff is going to be sleek and mean. Less of a buffoon. He’s got the Bandit by the balls, but through pure drunk stupidity, the Bandit is able to bumble his way out of it at every turn. The Bandit seldom knows what he’s doing, and that works in his favor.â€

Burt Reynolds is up for a cameo too.

And the storyline? “Oh, we’re sticking pretty close to the original film. We have full blessings from the Needham Estate. Hal loves the script; the concept of it. This Bandit is sort of a remake…A quasi-remake. But remake is such a harsh word. That’s why we’re throwing in the 4 (Thousand). It’s a definite play on words. This is number 4, but it’s The Bandit 4000. It works on it’s own. It’s its own little entity. Yet, it’s a sequel. It stays very true to the roots of the first film, but it’s a goof. That first Smokey and the Bandit was such an odd little movie. A really weird thing if you think about it. It’s about delivering a truck-full of beer from point A to point B. That’s our point of connection. 4000 is, once again, about bootlegging and delivering beer. Only this time, in Space. That’s it. When you watch the first three films back-to-back, there’s such an odd line of continuity. None of them really hold true to the other one. Even though 2 has Burt in it, it’s a rather off sequel. It’s about a pregnant elephant, for God’s sake. Most people forget that. What we’ve taken from that film is it’s opening sequence, which sees The Bandit a drunk mess in a hotel. We’ve taken that Bandit and given him his own movie. That’s our Bandit 4000. Only, he never sobers up through the whole film. It’s a throw back to films like Arthur, when alcoholism was funny, not a social stigma. He’s got a bit of Bender, the robot from Futurama, in him. We don’t deny that. We’ve also used some ideas from the end chase sequence in 2. It’s the best chase sequence in any of the films. We’ve got some sh*t that’s going to blow your mind. If its done right. You never know. 3? There’s very little we could take from 3. That’s just a strange, strange 90-minute stretch of film, there. Its tagline was ‘Smokey and the Bandit 3: Smokey is the Bandit’. But no, Jerry Reed was the Bandit. God love the man, but he looks like The Bandit with AIDS in that red shirt. He’s just plain scary. It doesn’t work.â€

The film is set for release in the Spring of 2005.

For more on the film go to Movieweb

By the way, friends and neighbors, in case you didn't see the "release date", I'm guessing they wised up... I hope.

[Julieduke]

I saw this 'round the grapevine and got a little scared. Have a look-see for yourselves:

By the way, friends and neighbors, in case you didn't see the "release date", I'm guessing they wised up... I hope.

Well, I hope they don't ever make this movie. First of all, it goes like this

Smokey And The Bandit :About The Beer: And John Schneider is a extra, Sonny Shroyer is a motorcycle cop and if watch beginning of movie Ben Jones has a big handlebar mustache and he has a small role. Who could ever forget the jabs that Sheriff Buford took at his son and he said nothing back. The worst looking police after a chase you could ever seen.

Smokey And The Bandit 2: The Elephant and the Dr, in it and the world's greatest chase seen between cops and truckers. And it's just classic when the Bandit drives across all those trucks and Buford falls between them.

Smokey and The Bandit 3: Buford and Junior and the fish scene and not to mention but watch the first scene in Knight Rider pilot and it's very same car that Snowman drives in this movie. Now this movie was all about the fish and Buford just wanted to catch the bandit after he retire after the Enos dares him with What about The Bandit.

Now not say anything but 2 Fast 2 Furious kind of had the same idea about all those cars and all those cops and who didn't love it when the trucks drove right over the cops cars in Miami.