Don't Play It, Madonna: She Wants To Remake Casablanca
Will this woman never stop? She's still convinced that she can be as big of a force on the silver screen as she was in music. Madonna has her sights set on remaking the classic war-time movie Casablanca, and she wants to set it in modern-day Iraq. Oh, and did I mention she wants the starring female lead for herself?
The singer, whose previous film career has been littered with critical and commercial turkeys, is also planning to take the lead role of Ilsa Lund, which originally made a star of Ingrid Bergman.A source at a major Hollywood studio that was recently approached by the 49-year-old star said: "She is still determined to make it in the movies.
"She and her representatives have been touting around a project which is a remake of Casablanca. The reception has been lukewarm to say the least. No one can understand why she wants to redo what many people consider the greatest film of all time." [...]
The source said: "Madonna is talking about taking the Ingrid Bergman role for herself, even though Bergman was in her 20s when she played Ilsa and Madonna is nearly 50.
"She wants to update the story and maybe set it in a modern war zone such as Iraq. There is no script yet.
"Madonna and her people are testing the waters to see if this is the right vehicle for her and if a major studio will get behind the project."
Hmm...if you take the story out of Casablanca, and put it in Iraq, and modernize it, do you really have a remake, or just an entirely new film with a few plot similarities? You could say that about any movie that's been made in the last forty years. Let's hope that, for once, studios will show some restraint and turn Her Madgesty down flat. There's no need to remake one of the most famous classic films of all time, unless it's to try and show off the size of Madonna's ego. Continued on the next page
