If you can believe it, t’s been seven years since the ominous news first emerged that Dwayne Johnson was planning to produce and star in either a remake, reboot, or sequel to John Carpenter’s beloved cult classic Big Trouble in Little China.
As you’d expect given the genre-bending original’s reputation and standing in the eyes of its fans, the response was hardly that of widespread enthusiasm. Even though the project appears to have made absolutely no forward momentum since first being announced, Seven Bucks figurehead Hiram Garcia hinted as recently as last summer that it remained on the docket.
There’s no need for Big Trouble in Little China to be put through the reinvention wringer, because there’s a zero percent chance it’ll come close to matching the undoubted majesty of Carpenter’s wildly unhinged hybrid of science fiction, horror, comedy, action, and martial arts. One person who definitely doesn’t want to see it happen is the legendary James Hong, who decried the very notion in an interview with ComicBook.
“Without Lo-Pan? How dare he. Well, I think they should leave the classic alone. However, I’d like to reappear in the new one and do something spiritually, like Star Wars where the characters come back and do a reprieve of some kind. Obviously, because let’s admit it, Lo-Pan is a huge part of that first one, so how can you forget him?”
Hong’s “how dare he” pretty much sums up how everyone feels about The Rock tackling Big Trouble in Little China, so it’d be for the best if it simply vanished into the ether of development hell to never be seen or heard from again. Following the success of Black Adam and his many other franchises, Johnson may not have the time to bastardize a classic as it is, so let’s keep our fingers crossed that it never ends up happening.
