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Steven Spielberg & Bradley Cooper Team Up for His Vision of Ca Chase Classic Bullitt


Variety:
Bradley Cooper is set to star in Steven Spielberg’s upcoming film, an original feature based on the character of Frank Bullitt, the no-nonsense San Francisco cop played by Steve McQueen in the 1968 action-thriller “Bullitt.”

Josh Singer (“The Post,” “Spotlight”) is writing the screenplay for the film, which is currently in development at Warner Bros. Though plot details haven’t been revealed, the forthcoming production is expected to follow Bullitt on an entirely different exploit than the McQueen original’s.

Warner Bros. released the original “Bullitt,” which was directed by Peter Yates and based on the 1963 novel “Mute Witness.” In what became McQueen’s most notable role, he portrayed a detective who investigates the death of a mob informant he was hired to protect. The movie is famous for including one of the most iconic and exciting car chases in cinema history with McQueen doing his own stunts in a modified Ford Mustang. “Bullitt” became a critical and commercial smash, generating $42 million on a $4 million budget and winning one Oscar.
EW:
Cooper will play Bullitt in a new story that's based on the classic film but not a remake.

Personally I think Spielberg is just trying to distance himself from the unpopular word. It stars the original character in his original setting, over 50 years removed from the original film. Yeah it's a remake. It's weird, because Frank Bullitt the cop wasn't a very memorable character, kinda a proto Dirty Harry. That's why he never became a household name (or a franchise), but his car chase did. The rest of the film isn't that remarkable. I think there's some potential for Spielberg to do whatever he wants. I don't think Bradley Cooper should be the leading man though. No matter what the story is, it's gonna have a Spielberg car chase set piece in it for sure, and that's exciting.

I mean, If anyone can do justice to this:
steve mcqueen cars GIF by Coolidge Corner Theatre
steve mcqueen cars GIF by Coolidge Corner Theatre
steve mcqueen cars GIF by Coolidge Corner Theatre


It's the guy who directed these:
Raiders Of The Lost Ark Jump GIF by Indiana Jones
5khn5z.gif
DeafeningSmallGrison-max-1mb.gif


escape-the-adventures-of-tintin.gif
tintin2l0jk7.gif


Special shoutout to 2004 gaf, which I found when searching for existing thread:

So what'd you think? Anyone still cares about Spielberg, Cooper, or 1960s car chases in this day and age?

Confused High Quality GIF
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Damn, Tintin was so good, wish they had done more. I read all those when in Europe for a summer in high school between trying to mack on all the girls using me to practice their English :p

Cooper ain't bad, to be honest I have little attachment to the OG, I just hope they use real cars as much as possible.
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
Damn, Tintin was so good, wish they had done more. I read all those when in Europe for a summer in high school between trying to mack on all the girls using me to practice their English :p

Cooper ain't bad, to be honest I have little attachment to the OG, I just hope they use real cars as much as possible.

They still want to do the two sequels. Jackson has to get off his documentary kick to do the second, then they'll co-direct the third.
 

AJUMP23

Gold Member
I like Bullit, could be great.


Tintin's car chase was topped in Ready Played One.

Spielberg is the best director of all time.

He is the greatest visual storyteller. And if I had to pick a top 5 of directors. I would put Hitchcock, Orion wells and Spielberg at the top. But I would struggle to pick number 1.

Many things people take for granted now in films were invented by wells and Hitchcock.
 
Tintin's car chase was topped in Ready Played One.

deae6c5edcaafd14d289849757eb20e50d45ba2c.gifv

Mercenary%2BGarage%2BCustom%2BMotorcycle%2BWorkshop%2B%2BArt%2BIllustration%2BCyberpunk%2BReady%2BPlayer%2BOne%2BAkira%2BBike%2BArtemis.gif


ks1zkx7gddc0b9egelsh-gif.523492


Spielberg is the best director of all time.
I forgot there was a car chase in that one. There was just so much going on, all the time. It's a bit of "how ya doing fellow kids" moment for me with Spielberg, trying to show the young kids he's into online worlds and pop culture too.
But that aside, yes I do think he ranks among the best commercial craftsmen.

At this point, he has nothing to prove. His legacy is cemented. Any project from here on out is really for himself. I knew he wanted to make West Side Story for decades, Fablemans is telling his own story, and now he's returning the favor to something that inspired him big time as a kid.
 

SirTerry-T

Member
It's not Bradley Cooper in the Steve McQueen role that I'm bothered about......but what the fuck are they going to replace this absolute star with?????
imZIVkC.jpg
 

ManaByte

Gold Member
The car chase in the original Bullitt ends with a crash in an empty lot. Decades later office buildings would be built on that lot and IGN's early 2000 offices would be there.
 
It's not Bradley Cooper in the Steve McQueen role that I'm bothered about......but what the fuck are they going to replace this absolute star with?????
imZIVkC.jpg
Nothing. It'll be the same car, most likely. The movie is not a modernization, it's a new story with the same character likely a few years after the original. Spielberg loves his period pieces.

ColossalBitesizedDiplodocus-max-1mb.gif

All the people who posted in that thread either couldn't be bothered posting anymore or got banned.
Yes, that's the point. Just thought it was funny that the disdain and fear of Hollywood remakes, even on Gaf, extended back 20 years.
 

LoneWolf&Subs

Neo Member
I’m a mark for Bradley Cooper. I know he’s developed a bit of a backlash for some reason, but he’s done no wrong in my eyes. The man’s one of the most incredibly versatile leading actors working today.

Can’t wait to see what they do with a new story in this setting given the current interest in doing projects set in the high class 60’s.
 

LoneWolf&Subs

Neo Member
He’s the top handsome talented actor of his generation. Like McQueen, and Newman were of their own generation. That’s probably why.
 

EruditeHobo

Member
Spielberg has been very hit and miss in recent years. 15 years ago I would have been all over anything with his name attached to it. Nowadays I approach with caution.

I get it, and you're not necessarily wrong... but even his mediocre stuff is worth the watch.

I'm a little behind, I haven't seen The Post or BFG yet, but in the past 15 years really only Indiana Jones 4 was something from him that felt bad during the screening.

My view is he's just got so much goodwill built up -- he's one of the only guys making movies in the way that he makes them, getting big budgets for weird period pieces and is obsessed (generally) with getting things photographed as practically as possible. Because of that in particular, this feels like a match made in heaven between director and material.

And while we're on the subject of late 60s/early 70s action thriller classics are getting updated... I wouldn't mind seeing an update to Doc and Carol McCoy in Mexico / The Getaway 2. Give me these kinds of remakes instead of yet another boring, CGI/cartoon superhero movie any day of the week. Remake The Wild Bunch, remake Vanishing Point, remake Smokey and the Bandit. Fuck it. Remake Dirty Harry & the man with no name trilogy.

Rather see any of that than Aquaman 2, that's for damn sure.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
I get it, and you're not necessarily wrong... but even his mediocre stuff is worth the watch.

I'm a little behind, I haven't seen The Post or BFG yet, but in the past 15 years really only Indiana Jones 4 was something from him that felt bad during the screening.

My view is he's just got so much goodwill built up -- he's one of the only guys making movies in the way that he makes them, getting big budgets for weird period pieces and is obsessed (generally) with getting things photographed as practically as possible. Because of that in particular, this feels like a match made in heaven between director and material.

And while we're on the subject of late 60s/early 70s action thriller classics are getting updated... I wouldn't mind seeing an update to Doc and Carol McCoy in Mexico / The Getaway 2. Give me these kinds of remakes instead of yet another boring, CGI/cartoon superhero movie any day of the week. Remake The Wild Bunch, remake Vanishing Point, remake Smokey and the Bandit. Fuck it. Remake Dirty Harry & the man with no name trilogy.

Rather see any of that than Aquaman 2, that's for damn sure.
The Post is amazing. I cant believe no one watched it. Amazing performance by Meryl Streep. There are like two scenes near the end of the film that give her some stuff to work with and man she just chews through each scene. What an actress. And while Jason Robards is a better Ben Bradlee, Tom Hanks was just as memorable.

That said, Spielberg hasnt made a true masterpiece since Munich or Minority Report. His movies are still great, but no longer the awe-inspiring genre defining stuff we got in the 80s and 90s. He's gone the way of Ridley Scott. I think Tarrantino is right about directors having a shelf life. Hes still talented but Nolan has taken over and is producing the kind of stuff Spielberg and Ridley Scott used to make. They both can make a mean motion picture, but they feel rather formulaic. Even if they are exquisitely made.
 

EruditeHobo

Member
Spielberg definitely is working within a certain storytelling paradigm, there's no doubt about that. But he is still one of the best doing it, that thing. He's not going to revolutionize the medium... he already did that a couple times, don't think he has more of that in him.

And I like Tenet, and really like Nolan, but I don't know if SS has ever made anything as... disjointed as Tenet.

AND I might argue WSS is close to a musical/theater masterpiece!

But he's definitely not doing his 70s/80s/90s thing anymore. He's doing a new thing -- ticking off all his passion projects, and completely filling out the resume.

Hopefully he still gets to a full fledged western before he hangs it up.
 
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