Drop Dead Fred Resurrected

I can think of about a million reasons why I hate the idea of a Drop Dead Fred remake, but towering above all others is the fact that Fred will be played by none other than Russell Brand.  If you don’t know who Russell Brand is, then save yourself and stop reading now.  Your life will be better if you never discover him.

You’re still reading so either you already know who he is, or you just like to torture yourself.  Russell Brand is a “comedian” from the UK (I put comedian in quotes because he’s not the least bit funny) who got his big break when he co-starred in Forgetting Sarah Marshall.  He actually wasn’t awful in the movie because his character was meant to be annoying.

Unfortunately, after Sarah Marshall, people made the mistake of assuming Brand was funny because he was funny in the movie.  No one realized that the only reason he was funny in the movie was because his lines were written by Jason Segel.  When he’s responsible for his own lines, destruction ensues.  He hosted the VMAs soon after and everyone got to see his true colors.  Many people were disappointed and even offended by the things he said during his opening act.  For some reason, he’s still around, and I don’t quite understand why.

Now that I got that out of my system, I can go back to the actual point of this article: Drop Dead Fred.  The original film was released in 1991 (not long enough ago for a remake!) and centers around a troubled girl who rediscovers her imaginary friend, Fred, from childhood.  Fred causes trouble everywhere they go and makes things worse for her, and of course no one believes that he is real.  The movie was crude and weird, but it gained a cult following over the years.  I know I watched it over and over, but I was always intrigued and disgusted at the same time.

The new Drop Dead Fred is being released by Universal and written by Dennis McNicholas who co-wrote the soon to be released Land of the Lost (which also looks like a horrible film from the trailer, which you can view by clicking Read More at the end of the post).  I assume they will find a way to make the new Fred cruder, ruder, and more disgusting than before since that seems to be what sells these days.  And I’m sure Russell Brand won’t object to being as obnoxious as possible.