'No, Really, We're Rebooting Fletch!' Says Warner Brothers, and They've Hired a Writer to Prove It!

I'm young yet, but I've been following current film news for going on ten years now. There has never been a point during this time at which someone wasn't swearing up and down that they were going to make a new "Fletch" movie.

Kevin Smith was going to do it with Jason Lee, and it was going to be the first Miramax franchise. "Scrubs" creator Bill Lawrence was going to do it with Zach Braff until Braff decided to actually make another movie himself. Other potential stars, including Zach Galifianakis and Jimmy Fallon have been considered at one point or another.

So color me skeptical when I read in The Hollywood Reporter this morning that "Fletch" is a "high priority" for Warner Brothers. Don't get me wrong, I know every studio in town is dying to conquer the insurmountable task of creating a successful comedy franchise (and I'm sure everyone will be watching how "The Hangover: Part II" performs next weekend), and "Fletch" basically already is that, but they have a long row to hoe to make this a film anyone will say "go" on.

The franchise started with a 1985 Chevy Chase film, followed by a sequel in 1989, and those two films are both the reason anyone wants to make a "Fletch" film and the reason nobody has. Without them, the books would barely be on anyone's radar, but too many people have made runs at the material feeling beholden to Chase's work.

In the meantime, they've hired former "Seinfeld" writer and current Sacha Baron Cohen collaborator David Mandel to prove it. Mandel wrote some of the finer later episodes of "Seinfeld," including "The Susie," "The Butter Shave," and "The Voice" ("helll-oooooooo!"), and the new film he's working on with Cohen sounds amazing.

It's called "The Dictator," and it revolves around a dictator trying to prevent democracy from coming to the country he's been oppressing.

Warner Brothers is probably looking for something a little less incendiary. The Hollywood Reporter story trots out the usual "smart action comedy that plays on a bigger canvas" (it has thrills and laughs!) without recognizing that almost nobody has figured out the action comedy. I don't mean creatively; there are plenty of good ones. They just never make any money.

So expect a lot of talk from Mandel over the next few months to a year about how he's always loved the original Chevy Chase movies but is eager to put his own spin on the material and how everyone's very excited but they want to make sure they do it justice. And then it never gets made.