Everybody’s favourite eccentric, widowed inventor is about to be again within the driver’s seat of essentially the most idiosyncratic flying automotive you’ve got ever encountered. Should you simply learn these phrases and thought “huh?” then you definately clearly weren’t raised on the enduring movie Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, which is within the early phases of being remade by Amazon MGM Studios.
In unique new reporting from Deadline, it seems that Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson’s Eon Productions are within the early phases of growth on the movie alongside the aforementioned Amazon. If the names Barbara Broccoli and Michael Wilson sound acquainted, it is doubtless resulting from their work within the James Bond universe, which has a singular — and even perhaps shocking — connection to the 1968 movie.
How Is ‘Chitty Chitty Bang Bang’ Related to James Bond and Roald Dahl?
You see, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang: The Magical Automotive was initially a kids’s e book written by Bond writer Ian Fleming within the mid-Sixties, and rapidly thereafter tailored right into a screenplay by none aside from Roald Dahl (alongside Ken Hughes and Richard Maibaum). In 1968, the movie iteration was launched, starring (newly-minted music video star) Dick Van Dyke, Sally Ann Howes, Lionel Jeffries, Gert Fröbe, Anna Quayle, and Benny Hill, enjoying characters with pleasant names like Caractacus Potts (Van Dyke), Really Delicious (Howe), Baron Bomburst (Fröbe), and Coggins (a private favourite performed by Desmond Llewelyn).
Amazon MGM and Eon are presently within the earliest phases of manufacturing, assembly with potential writers and administrators to deal with turning the challenge into one thing which may attraction to a extra trendy viewers. In response to Deadline, “the movie is being developed with a theatrical launch in thoughts,” slightly than a direct-to-streaming state of affairs.
Which might make sense contemplating the colourful and outlandish world Fleming created — one that really begs for a big display on which to view it. The unique movie featured among the campiest and most enjoyable performances from the actors concerned (which is actually saying one thing when you think about what a campy and enjoyable profession somebody like Van Dyke has had over his 99 years).
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The plot of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang is equal components easy and outlandish, centering on Van Dyke’s widowed inventor and his two kids, who go on adventures with their father and a lady admirer named Really Delicious in an previous race automotive he turns right into a multipurpose magical machine, able to flying by means of air and driving the waves — which is precisely what they do in a race to avoid wasting their kidnapped grandfather. The film additionally featured songs from the Sherman Brothers, who labored because the songwriters for Mary Poppins. Their theme track went on to be nominated for the 1968 Academy Award within the class of “Finest Unique Track.”
As darkish as one would possibly anticipate a kids’s story dropped at display by Dahl could be, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang was such a beloved hit, it later turned successful stage musical as nicely, garnering Olivier- and Tony-nominations for its 2002 West Finish manufacturing. It got here to Broadway in 2005 and is presently touring the UK.
There’s presently no launch date slated for the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang remake.