Brett Ratner To Direct MIDNIGHT RUN 2 – I’m Okay With That!
Much despised director Brett Ratner is set to direct the sequel to Robert DeNiro’s 1988 film Midnight Run. David Elliot & Paul Lovett have been hired to re-write the script, and while many will be furious at Ratner’s appointment – I’m quite happy with it.
Tim Dowling first wrote a draft of Midnight Run 2 in 2010, when it was first announced that De Niro and Jane Rosenthal were producing through Tribeca Productions.
At the time I wrote on Screen Rant:
“While the original Midnight Run wasn’t a massive hit ($38 million) it did get great reviews and a cult following on VHS (maybe some of our older readers will remember that) and it spawned a few, not very good made-for-television spin-offs. It’s no surprise that Universal is making a sequel; The original film did have follow-up potential and Universal always like to make good use of whatever films they have in their library.
It’ll be interesting to see if Martin Brest returns to direct Midnight Run 2, as a the director of the original and the first Beverly Hills Cop. it’s easy to see that he knows his way around the action-comedy genre – but will he be allowed out of “director jail” after writing and directing the massive commercial and critical disaster Gigli?”
Now it appears that my question has been answered and Ratner has been hired. Ratner comes under a lot of fire for his films, and while he hasn’t made a cinematic classic, he has knocked out solid movies. Sure, the Rush Hour movies are buddy action comedies (decent ones at that) and I have a soft spot for the Pierce Brosnan starrer After the Sunset. The Family Man was a decent dramedy and Red Dragon, may not have been as good as Silence of the Lambs and Manhunter, but it was a damn sight better than Ridley Scott’s Hannibal. The artistic failure of X-Men: The Last Stand wasn’t exactly Ratner’s fault as he was brought in at the last minute due to Matthew Vaughn’s departure (it still became the highest grossing in the franchise) and, while I haven’t seen Tower Heist – it doesn’t look terrible.
So, Brett Ratner directing Midnight Run 2?
Yeah, I’m up for that.
Source: Deadline
