Six years have gone by since it was first announced that Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson would be starring in a remake of John Carpenter's 1986 supernatural action/adventure film Big Trouble in Little China (get it HERE) and there's still no sign of the project moving into production. Speaking with Collider, Johnson's producing partner Hiram Garcia confirmed that he and Johnson are still hoping to make Big Trouble in Little China at some point – and clarified that it wouldn't be a remake, it would be a "continuation" set in the same world as the original.
Garcia said,
(Big Trouble in Little China) is still an ambition of ours but unfortunately there are complications that come with a legacy property like that which has so much attached to it from over the years. We have a really fun idea on what we'd want to do with it, especially since our goal was never to remake Big Trouble but simply continue it. Similar to what we did with Jumanji, we would continue the story and make sure the original stands on it’s own since it means so much to us and fans all around the world. So needless to say we are still working on making that happen but as with any great project the road is not easy but we are sticking to it! We're going to figure out a way to continue the story of Big Trouble in Little China."
Back in 2016, Johnson told Entertainment Weekly,
I loved the original when I was younger and I loved the main character – all the characters. It felt like if we surrounded ourselves with the right group of people, the right writers who loved the movie too and wanted to honor it, bring on John Carpenter in some capacity … If we did that, then we have a shot at hopefully making something good."
The original film starred Kurt Russell as
hard-boiled truck driver Jack Burton, who gets caught in a bizarre conflict within, and underneath, San Francisco's Chinatown. An ancient Chinese prince and Chinatown crime lord has kidnapped a beautiful green-eyed woman, who is the fiancee to Jack's best friend. Jack must help his friend rescue the girl before the evil Lo Pan uses her to break the ancient curse that keeps him a fleshless and immortal spirit.
When the project was first announced, X-Men: First Class writers Ashley Miller and Zack Stentz were working on the screenplay. If this could turn out to be a "legacy sequel" with Johnson playing a new character who shares the screen with Russell, back in the role of Jack Burton, I would be very excited to see it.
