‘Splash’ Remake Coming with Channing Tatum and Jillian Bell, Release Date and Plot Twist

Aug 02, 2016 08:50 AM EDT

In 1984, there was a Disney movie released under the Touchstone label that was an odd romantic comedy.  It was targeted for adults, but it was about a man who falls in love with a mermaid, and it wasn't the animated The Little Mermaid that came out five years later.  The film was Splash, and it jumpstarted the careers of both Tom Hanks and Darryl Hannah, and just like everything else from the eighties, it is being remade.  This is what is known about the new Splash release date and its plot twist. 

We might as well get the plot twist out of the way.  In the original film, it was about a man (Tom Hanks) who falls in love with a woman from the sea (Darryl Hannah).  In this new twist, there is a gender swap, kind of like the last Ghostbusters movie. 

The new Splash will have Channing Tatum as the mer...man.  Then Jillian Bell will play the human.  What is really strange is how Brian Grazer, the original creator of the story of the first Splash film, promised that there will be a remake with a "different point of view", according to iO9

Apparently, Jillian Bell came up with this concept, and writer Marja-Lewis Ryan.  Is this going to be under the Disney label?  The first one was barely under it, as it dealt with a lot of adult themes, but got the PG rating (because PG-13 hadn't been invented yet at the time of its release). 

Okay, if you have seen the original movie, then you know that Tom Hanks teams up with John Candy as bungling brothers.  A remake would be quite different as it will focus on the woman character, and it could come off as an interesting rom-com (romantic comedy). 

At this point in time, it feels like there are a lot of things getting remade.  I can't help but wonder if movie studios are just planning their film after what films were hits thirty years ago, and then just calling it a day on originality. 

There is no release date for this new version of Splash, but my advice is prepare for backlash.  Yeah, you know that Ghostbusters had a lot of hate because they were remaking a film with a gender swap.  You don't think that this new Splash will get that treatment, will you?  Of course it will.  The only question is how many remakes will be getting this treatment before we as audiences will just get used to it, or completely ignore them.