Eddie Murphy is hoping to make his planned remake of Stanley Kramer’s 1963 ensemble comedy classic “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World.”
Speaking with Entertainment Tonight, Murphy confirmed the remake is coming sooner than we think, and he has quite the ambitious plan in terms of casting — he wants all of the top comedians of the last 30 years to take part.
I got this other idea for something with Martin [Lawrence]. I’ve been developing it for years. Did you ever see a movie “It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World”? Well, I got a script, it will be delivered any minute now written by Jez Butterworth (“Ford v Ferrari”) and I’m trying to do a remake of that movie […] It’s one of my favorite movies of all time and if I do it, if the script turns out right, it’s gonna be a cast of all the who’s who of comedians. Anybody that was funny over the last 30 years is going to be in this movie.
The plot of ‘Mad, Mad World’ has been replicated many times, although not necessarily as any kind of official remake. The 1963 movie was led by Spencer Tracy and featured comedy legends like Buddy Hackett, Jonathan Winters and Milton Berle. The most notable attempt at remaking it came in the form of 2001’s “Rat Race”, which starred the likes of Jon Lovitz, Rowan Atkinson and John Cleese.
The story is fairly simple, a mosaic of characters, travelling across a state, attempt to find a hidden loot; they turn against each other, comic shenanigans occur in the process. It’s the kind of blueprint that could make for fun slapstick. I also can’t picture anyone but Netflix producing such a film in this day and age.
If this project does indeed get the green light, and Murphy’s promise of assembling a who’s who of comedians comes to fruition, then I’d be down for such a movie to get made. It could be very entertaining, and very costly for the studio that decides to produce the film.
It is promising that Jez Butterworth is scripting the remake, so we’re probably not going to be getting any kind of hack attempt here. Murphy is also correct in that the cast does have to gel correctly if they want to make this remake work. I’m guessing, given his five decades in the business, he has the contacts to make this happen — who should he cast?