20th Century Studios Targets ‘Enemy Mine’ Remake With ‘Picard’ Showrunner Terry Matalas Set To Write
Audiences may be sick of remakes and sequels – and the general continuations of moribund establishment franchises – but Hollywood sure isn’t, and they know what they are going after next.
20th Century Studios has set a course for the 80s again and will be ‘mining’ the decade for another one of its undisputed cult classics. According to The Hollywood Reporter, Enemy Mine is the latest to get an update in a project being written by Star Trek: Picard’s late-entry showrunner Terry Matalas.
So far, he is the only name attached. There is no producer or direcor aboard yet, assuming they go beyond development and Matalas doesn’t take on one of those duties, too.
The original came out back in 1985 and was directed ulimately by Wolfgang Petersen. Starring Dennis Quaid and Louis Gossett, Jr., the plot concerned a human and an alien of a rival species who had to put their differences aside and fight to survive on a hostile planet.
Enemy Mine didn’t perform favorably in its theatrical release but it found an audience through the years via home video and airings on TV. Additionally, it was one of many cult favorites of the era that Quaid and Gossett partook in.
Aside from Picard, Matalas’s body of work includes the 12 Monkeys series for Syfy, another reboot which he created and ran, and the fourth season of MacGyver. He is also heading up the series with Vision (Paul Bettany) coming to Disney Plus.
RELATED: Oscar-Winning ‘Iron Eagle’ And ‘The Punisher’ Actor Louis Gossett, Jr., Dead At 87
Remakes, reboots, and sci-fi action seem to be his bread and butter, meaning he has the right experience on paper, but Picard was as much of a mixed bag for fans – and that’s being optimistic – as the rest of modern Star Trek, and Star Wars for that matter.
Ratings were better under Matalas, though, so there’s that.
Enemy Mine was based on a novella by Barry B. Longyear published in Isaac Asimov’s magazine Science Fiction. It won a Nebula Award in 1979 and inspired two sequels later compiled into a volume called The Enemy Papers.
The original film adaptation’s co-leading man, Gossett, passed away earlier in 2024, leaving behind a career that lasted up until this year and the family comedy IF.
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