Under normal circumstances, if we read that director/screenwriter Peter Sollett (“Raising Victor Vargas,” “Five Feet High and Rising”) were tapped to rewrite the screenplay for “Footloose” then a flurry of hopeful excitement for a new, more sincere “Footloose” that is perhaps set in a more multi-cultural small town. However, when said announcement is listed in Variety with a sub-heading about “High School Musical” franchise wunderkid Zac Efron‘s seven figure salary, the air in our balloon is quickly deflated.
The bubbly musical fare of the original “Footloose” is not new territory to Efron – aside from his time as a high school heart throb for emotionally neutered teens everywhere he also starred in the PG-ified version of cult camp classic “Hairspray.” As you’ll well recall, if you’re old enough, the soundtrack to Footloose was packed with really terrible songs, including the Kenny Loggins title track (which one can reasonably expect to turned into a solo vocal turn for Efron) and several infamous Kevin Bacon dance montages.
After Sollett’s recent turn on indie-music-movie cum box-office-flop “Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist” his indie cred is in question — penning a movie musical (yes, Variety also confirms that new songs are being penned to compliment the already iconic original soundtrack) that will star the whitest teen boy alive is quite the bold move for this guy. Is he running right into the arms of mainstream Hollywood on their terms?
Let’s all take a moment to remember Kevin Bacon’s star-making ’80s moment in the original preachy teen drama.
I love Peter Sollet, because I love Raising Victor Vargas and Playlist. He’s indie chops should not be discredited or disputed here because he’s writing Footlose. Whatever, rent is due, and I’m sure he will do it right.
As for Zac Efron. He’s still a kid. He’s easily doing what is already expected of him, cuz of Highschool musical. I guess he’s like I’ll just go with the flow. As he gets older, he will figure it out, and after he finishes filling his coffers with the money with what Hollywood is paying him.
But hey, whatever. He’s good looking white bread Americana innocuous kid. That’s goes down easy like a glass of milk. LOL!!
Cheers!!
It’s not about money. The point here is: we all loved Raising Victor Vargas, it’s something special. Then Nick and Norah came along and it was kind rote romcom overall (with some sweet moments early on, but it didn’t have true legs).
Essentially what we’re saying here is: would be nice for him to go back to telling his personal stories, but yes, we realize people need to pay the rent and its hard to turn down big opportunities like Footloose no matter how bad it may seem.