Joe Carnahan On The A-Team, Plus Brand New Pic

Joe Carnahan On The A-Team, Plus Brand New Pic

We have a cool new pic of the A-Team in action, and the movies director talks about the decisions he made when adapting the film from its TV show roots.

News
By MarkCassidy - Jan 14, 2010 04:01 PM EST
Filed Under: Action
Source: LATimes

In an interview with The LA Times, Joe Carnahan says that when he came on board he threw away all the previous scripts...

"I thought they were too slavishly devoted to the TV show," he explained. "While I like the TV show, I didn't think it was any great shakes in terms of heavy drama. You could take that story and have it translate into the present day with more success."

He continued: "We're not making an homage to The A-Team. We're taking the base story of four guys wrongfully convicted of a crime, they're an Alpha Unit, that's it. That’s the point of departure."

Cool. I was a big fan of the show but I agree with him. A movie that was completely faithful to the tv show would have ended up as a campy piss take like Starsky And Hutch. That being said, the trailer certainly looked like it was staying true to the spirit of the show to me. Hopefully we get a nice balance.



"The A-Team" is currently scheduled to hit theaters on June 11th.
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lc
lc - 1/14/2010, 4:37 PM
cool i like alot well done you :)
LEEE777
LEEE777 - 1/14/2010, 4:42 PM
lc wtf lol!

Nice pic R-man!!!
slimybug
slimybug - 1/14/2010, 4:45 PM
I never watched the show, but from what the fans who have seen the trailer say, it looks like it's staying pretty faithful to the characters.
Phinehas
Phinehas - 1/14/2010, 4:46 PM
WOW! Ror, completely agree with you on that one!
thenumber12
thenumber12 - 1/14/2010, 5:01 PM
I'm all about this movie
superdog
superdog - 1/14/2010, 5:25 PM
I'm starting to get very excited for this. Luv what I see so far

lee77@ WTF?
Swiftsword777
Swiftsword777 - 1/14/2010, 5:45 PM
I liked Starsky And Hutch.
supermarioworldE
supermarioworldE - 1/14/2010, 5:49 PM
It's gonna be so odd seeing Sharlto Copley speak with a southern American accent for two hours.
MarkCassidy
MarkCassidy - 1/14/2010, 6:01 PM
Never..no way , not with that cast. I'm not saying its gonna be great, but there is no way it will stink as high a GI JOke..(I hope!)

Cheers Tea, Pine. Hey I kinda like Starsky And Hutch myself, it had some funny bits. But have you ever seen the original show? Miiiiiles better.
LEEE777
LEEE777 - 1/14/2010, 6:07 PM
SUPERDOG @ WTTFF ??? ; D

ROR @ YOU MEAN W*NKERINES: BORIGINS, DAMN THAT MOVIE STUNK!! : D


HarrisonBergeron
HarrisonBergeron - 1/14/2010, 6:20 PM
The trailer looks good, until they end up shooting down a Predator from a parachuting tank. That is campy as hell, so the idea of updating it to avoid campy-ness is null.

It has a good cast, but my preliminary prediction is that the story is going to be such a pile that not even great casting could save it.
MarkCassidy
MarkCassidy - 1/14/2010, 6:32 PM
Sigh, no Lee, I meant GI JOe. Wolverine was like Watchmen compared to that steaming mess.

Jesus, Dukes! Well, one good thing about that movie was Jessica Simpson and the vid she made for it. Mmmmmmmm
Phinehas
Phinehas - 1/14/2010, 6:44 PM
Ror
Agreed! Much better show than film! Miles above!





Dukes of Hazzard had loads of room for improvement to be a great movie like A-Team. But they went the other way with and destroyed it! Broken Lizard Prod. hasn't been seen since. Took their millions and ran!
Phinehas
Phinehas - 1/14/2010, 7:47 PM
Skyh00k
Not a problem for anyone else. Sometimes news is so slow that a week will go by without real news. Sure people filler news in, but thats it. This has been the best week for news since...NOVEMBER!!!
I have no complaints. Perhaps you should just be selective to what you choose to read.
ironknight27
ironknight27 - 1/14/2010, 8:14 PM
@Ror-LOL! Yeah I agree Origins was a better movie than GI JOE. The only redeeming thing about GI JOE was SnakeEyes and Storm Shadow. Now I dont think that Origins was a great movie because there were so many flaws but I still enjoyed it. I have said it before and I will say it again the movie should have been similar to the Origins video game.
lc
lc - 1/14/2010, 8:29 PM
wtf urself LEEE ! i like this so deal with it monkey boy lol
ukboy28
ukboy28 - 1/14/2010, 8:36 PM
good work ror

and it looks entertaing at worst, im defo going to give this a watch.
OverCross
OverCross - 1/14/2010, 9:18 PM
THATS what we wanna see
t1simps
t1simps - 1/14/2010, 11:02 PM
I just hope I see at least one person actually get HIT by some of the thousands of bullets flying in the movie. If they change that at least, I will be happy!
SHHH
SHHH - 1/14/2010, 11:17 PM
Best scene in Dukes of Hazzard maybe the only

luffycapri
luffycapri - 1/14/2010, 11:45 PM
this movie could be good
HannibalSmith
HannibalSmith - 1/15/2010, 12:13 AM
I just hope Murdock will be insane,literally.
comicb00kguy
comicb00kguy - 1/15/2010, 7:46 AM
I'm just getting the feeling that this is going to be yet another in the long, long list of movies based on TV shows that completely sucks. It sounds to me like this director is throwing the baby out with the bath water, and completely abandoning what made the show work. If you want to update things, and infer that the "crime they didn't commit" was in Iraq or something like that, no problem. Throwing out all but the most basic concept of the show's entire premise is something else entirely. No, the A-Team wasn't serious drama, but still, I'd like to hear a bit more respect for the original source material. Movies that stray too far from the source material almost invariably suck. At least I'm not seeing them all wearing black armor or leather outfits yet.
hescian
hescian - 1/15/2010, 10:20 AM
I'll try to keep this as short as possible.
@Ror - nice find, but I disagree with you in one spot. The movies for Starsky & Hutch, Charlie's Angels, and even the Dukes were much more campy than the tv shows. It was their LACK of faithfulness that made them campy, not the other way around.
As far as Carnahan's comments. If the only thing similar to the tv show is that they are an "Alpha Unit" wrongfully committed of a crime, then why make it an A-Team movie? Why use the characters, the name, or the van? Just make a new movie about a commando squad who've become mercenaries.

Everyone on this site gets really pissed off when CBM's don't stick to source material. It's worked out a couple of times (Blade, Dark Knight) when they've gone away from source, but look how upsetting Deadpool was in the Wolverine movie. They took the character's name, and a few character traits, then did whatever the hell they wanted with it. Sounds like they're doing the same with the A-Team.

This is like having a band called the New Beatles, with 4 guys named John, Paul, George and Ringo... but they only play house music.
Gweedo
Gweedo - 1/15/2010, 12:15 PM
From the trailer I think this movie is going to be awesome. I actually liked Dukes of Hazzard but I'm a Broken Lizard, Sean William Scott, Burt Reynolds fan. So I'm pretty biased. Just as a stand alone movie, forgetting about the show, I thought it was entertaining.

@Phine Broken Lizard has since put out Beer Fest. But yeah Dukes probably pulled in the most out of any of their movies. Too lazy to actually look it up to see if that is true...
HarrisonBergeron
HarrisonBergeron - 1/15/2010, 2:30 PM
Wasn't Super Troopers a Broken Lizard movie? I would guess that that was their highest earner.

Where Does the Miami Vice movie fit into this discussion? Didn't it get the same "characters and nothing else" treatment that the A-Team is getting? That movie wasn't very well received was it?
Phinehas
Phinehas - 1/15/2010, 5:17 PM
Gweedo
While its undeniably true that Beerfest came out the next year after DoH, you have to remember it was probably in the midst of production and was fully financed, bonded, insured casted and manned to be filmed. But after the fallout of DoH, Jay Chandrasekhar landed himself in the low-budgeted realm of television for the last 5 years.
You are among the few that liked the movie.
StephenStrange
StephenStrange - 1/15/2010, 6:54 PM
lol lc said monkey boy
SHHH
SHHH - 1/15/2010, 7:18 PM
Miami Vice doesn't belong in the discussing... Dukes pulled in 75 mill in it's first weekend..Don't mean much..
SHHH
SHHH - 1/15/2010, 7:19 PM
Jay Chandrasekhar ruined it..No worse than majority of these bs cbm's they put out..
hescian
hescian - 1/15/2010, 9:18 PM
No Miami Vice doesn't fit in this discussion. Sure the movie was updated, but it had almost the exact same tone, camera angles, and atmosphere as the series.
And that's because of Michael Mann. Michael Mann was the exec producer for the series and was almost wholly responsible for giving the show a darker, grittier feel as the series went on, and the movie was no different (he wrote, directed and produced the movie).
hescian
hescian - 1/15/2010, 9:21 PM
I'm guessing Carnahan is making these comments now, because he knows (probably based on early test screenings) that fans of the tv show are not going to be happy.

Kind of like how Smallville started out as Clark Kent's development to Superman, and then after all the Supe fans started getting pissed off, it became "an alternate universe".
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