For me this link just goes back to itself. Is it supposed to go someplace else?

That's all kind of interesting though. That they're remaking it, that Smith is going to be starring in it(-ish), that it'd be the Tony Head role...

orangewaxlion | November 20, 04:55 CET

Yeah, the link is bodged.

gossi | November 20, 05:04 CET

OMG do you mean to say that Silent Bob is going to talk?! The world may spin off it's axis.

embers | November 20, 05:21 CET

Um, I just don't see Smith doing that role, but maybe he'll surprise me.

Tonya J | November 20, 05:21 CET

Oh come on, he was so great in daredevil and scream 3.

theyarescientists | November 20, 06:20 CET

The link works now. I don't know quite what to make of it, if true, either. Except that he really likes being an actor, and maybe is currently out of ideas as a writer/director.

dreamlogic | November 20, 06:26 CET

John Corbett and Kevin Smith? Man, what a combination!I don't know if this will affect Kevin's movie-making career, but it should make his next appearances in Wondercon and Comic-Con more interesting.
But who else would you like to see in the US adaptation of "Manchild?"

impalergeneral | November 20, 06:54 CET

Weird. I see they're de-aging the men for this version. No surprise. Most of 'em will probably be more attractive too (for my money, ASH was the only passable guy on the original Brit version. The whole main foursome was entertaining though). I find Kevin Smith kinda hot, personally, but I'm not sure how his physicality can really match up with the personality and egoism of that character, unless they're changing his personality somewhat.

Not gonna get all pre-judgey before I see it. Sometimes Americanized versions do work out. Witness: The Office. I can only speak of the U.S. version, which I love--even though I don't follow it religiously and have only see Season 1, most of Season 3, and none of Season 2. I hear some folks who first watched the U.K. original Office like the U.S. one better, though I've also seen the "both versions are hilarious and well-acted" sorts of opinions as well.

Still don't really get why they're re-making it. If you're just gonna have a Sex & The City with younger men, well, we've already got Entourage on this side of the pond. I guess the network heads don't think North America is ready for a show about late 40-ish to mid-50-ish men in their mid-life crises ? As usual, they underestimate.

[ edited by Kris on 2006-11-20 05:38 ]

Kris | November 20, 07:36 CET

But who else would you like to see in the US adaptation of "Manchild?"

Now that I've read more about it, it doesn't appear that Kevin Smith is playing the same character as Tony Head,

"Smith will play Paul, the cynic of the group, an angry divorced guy who loathes himself, his ex and his ex's perfect new husband."

Doesn't really sound like James, ASH's role, but if it were, I'd cast someone like Rob Lowe or James Spader. Interesting they cast James Purefoy, late of Rome, because I thought it was an American production.

Tonya J | November 20, 08:33 CET

Well, considering that he's a number of projects in the works (a untitled horror movie, a sci-fi comedy movie "Ranger Danger", the Clerks animated movie) I don't think he's run out of ideas.

On Kevin Smith's blog, he explains that he was sent the script for the pilot and liked it so much and found it so funny that he couldn't turn it down.

Matt_Fabb | November 20, 09:20 CET

Kris: "I guess the network heads don't think North America is ready for a show about late 40-ish to mid-50-ish men in their mid-life crises ? As usual, they underestimate."

You may be right, Kris, although I'm inclined to think that network heads wouldn't remotely care if we're ready for it -- it simply wouldn't attract that fabled and much-coveted 18-35 or whatever advertising demographic.

Though frankly, at 51, I have way more money to spend on crap than I did when I was 25.

And, of course, as per always, they underestimate the viewing public. I believe it's just possible that younger people can deal with relating to older people on TV, and of course, older people do actually watch TV. The picture I keep getting in my head is from a scene in The Big Picture where the director has to keep pitching his characters as younger and and ever younger to keep in line with studio demands that ignore the story...

Be that as whatever, I watched the Brit version on BBC America because of ASH, and thought, aside from him, whatever charm the show had rested in the fact that these aging mid-lifer males were each trying to deal with the loss of youth and their mortality in their own special ways. Not quite the same kind of bite if they're thirty-somethings... Or is 30 the new 50? I thought it was the other way around...

QuoterGal | November 20, 09:46 CET

I don't know anything about this show, but just looking at the title -- Manchild -- it certainly seems that Kevin Smith would be perfect to play a man who still acts like a child *coughslackercough*. I like Mr. Smith a lot, esp. the Clerks movies and animated, and I thought he was just fine in his little role on VM last season, so that might affect my opinion about this news.

Even though I don't know the English original of Manchild, I'm interested in seeing what they do in the American version; as Kris pointed out, the American The Office is great. Frankly, I'm more worried about the American version of Life on Mars, since I did see the original version of that on BBC America, and I can't imagine what they'd do with the totally hard-a**ed character of Gene in a Yank-afied version. (That sounded better in my head than when I typed it.) ;-)

billz | November 20, 13:29 CET

Oh my goodness, this is like a nightmare.

Angelite | November 20, 16:41 CET

I loved the original, the bit of news is making me cringe. Although I'm quite fond of Kevin in other venues.

cronopio | November 20, 18:02 CET

Well, Smith can do cynical just fine though I don't see him doing ASH's character so as others suggest I think they'll have changed it completely. Not a show I was terribly invested in though I enjoyed what I saw of it (ASH and Nigel Havers were both pretty good in it I thought).

Re: 'Life on Mars', the only way to do it, IMO, is to just take the premise and craft a different show from it. I think the US one will be able to do hard-arsed just fine billz, it's whether they can strike the fine balance of Gene's humanity against his hard-arsedness that's the test cos though he's a bit of a bastard, he's that way for pretty much selfless reasons (and played fantastically by Philip Glenister - brother to Hustle's Robert 'Ash' Glenister, BTW, for anyone that's seen that).

Maybe the mistake made by some US remakes is to stick too closely to the British original ? 'Fawlty Towers' for instance would work fine providing they took what is essentially a comedy of British manners/errors and translated it to America ('Frasier', among others, proved that American comedies of manners and/or errors work just fine). Oh, and created an American clone of John Cleese. And put in place a class-system as finely granulated as the English one (OK, so 'Fawlty Towers' was a bad example but the principle holds ;).

Saje | November 20, 18:19 CET

Kevin's blog entry says that it keeps the name and concept, but the characters are new, so he isn't so much doing ASH's character. I've only caught one or two eps of the original Manchild, but its in my Netflix queue. I'll reserve judgment 'til I see it, though Corbett and Smith together is an entertaining thought.

I adore Life on Mars, so I'm interested and terrified at the same time at the prospect of a US version of it (witness Coupling US...).

zeitgeist | November 20, 19:06 CET

"'Fawlty Towers' for instance would work fine providing they took what is essentially a comedy of British manners/errors and translated it to America ('Frasier', among others, proved that American comedies of manners and/or errors work just fine). Oh, and created an American clone of John Cleese. And put in place a class-system as finely granulated as the English one (OK, so 'Fawlty Towers' was a bad example but the principle holds ;)."

Been tried. Didn't work.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0182623/

MattM | November 20, 19:35 CET

British versions of American shows have been equally inept. Brighton Belles (the UK version of Golden Girls) was just awful.

Simon | November 20, 20:06 CET

Re: 'Life on Mars', the only way to do it, IMO, is to just take the premise and craft a different show from it. I think the US one will be able to do hard-arsed just fine billz, it's whether they can strike the fine balance of Gene's humanity against his hard-arsedness that's the test cos though he's a bit of a bastard, he's that way for pretty much selfless reasons (and played fantastically by Philip Glenister - brother to Hustle's Robert 'Ash' Glenister, BTW, for anyone that's seen that).

Very insightful, Saje. Yeah, it's really hard to hate Gene, even though he's a blunt instrument; must be that pesky humanity left in him. I guess you could compare him to Doakes in Dexter (saw the latest ep last night, BTW -- and I so totally rock for having guessed a plot development that was revealed in this ep when it was first set up a week or two ago, lol). ;-)

billz | November 20, 20:06 CET

British versions of American shows have been equally inept. Brighton Belles (the UK version of Golden Girls) was just awful.

BWAH! ::Falls over with a resounding THUD::

You are kidding me! I have never heard of that before.

Tonya J | November 20, 20:23 CET

Been tried. Didn't work.

Yep MattM, multiple times in fact. Hence all the jokey back peddling at the end of the paragraph ;).

Doakes is a good comparison billz since he also started out very harsh and slightly over the top then the layers started to be peeled away. I'll have to watch it tonight to find out what you were right about ;).

Never saw 'Brighton Belles' but it's pretty much universally reviled so that probably says enough.

Saje | November 20, 21:41 CET

MattM, do you realize that the show you linked to starred Julie Benz? Imagine that.

electricspacegirl | November 20, 23:20 CET

Question: is the American Office really as good as the British one? I just can't imagine that being possible--the British one is about the only show that I can think of that rivals my Whedon obsessions.

It's the next show on my list to watch, along with Battlestar Galactica. I just have no time.

WilliamTheB | November 21, 08:34 CET