Michael Luisi, the President of WWE Studios, has been talking about the wrestling company’s reboot of THE LEPRECHAUN franchise and their crossover with Scooby Doo.
Now, WWE Studios has a run of films so bad, they make Danny Dyer’s oeuvre look like early Pixar. With moviess like KNUCKLEHEAD (2010) starring ‘The Big Show’ Paul Wight, THE CHAPERONE (2011) starring ‘Triple H’ Paul Levesque and THE MARINE franchise (2006/2009/2012) starring John Cena, Ted DiBiase JR and ‘The Miz,’ they are known for producing films starring wrestlers. All these films are bad. Really, very bad indeed. Never the less, they persevere and have actually gotten some credible people involved. In the past their films have featured Ed Harris, Parker Posey and Michael Rapaport among others. And March sees the release of DEAD MAN DOWN, starring a surprisingly decent line up including Colin Farrell, Terence Howard, Dominic Cooper and Noomi Rapace, along with wrestler Wade Barrett.
However, their most intriguing project in the near future is the reboot of cult series, THE LEPRECHAUN. When this was announced back in March 2012, we guessed they would cast their wrestling leprechaun ‘Hornswoggle’ (or Dylan Postl as non-wrestling folk call him) and they did. But how did The WWE of all companies end up with the rights to the horror classic?
‘Well, it’s controlled by Lionsgate,’ said studio president Luisi. ‘All of the movies that we’re doing now we do with co-producing, co-financing partners. I come out of 12 years at Miramax so I have a lot of relationships from the Miramax days and when I went out and pitched our new business model to the people I knew at Lionsgate, they said, “Hey, you know what would be kind of fun? Finding something to do with your guys with one of your superstars that revolves around one of our existing franchises.” And I said, “I’ve got the project for you: Leprechaun, Hornswaggle.” Our talent Hornswaggle who will play the Leprechaun in the reboot of the franchise.’
So with the kiddy-friendly Hornswoggle involved, one would imagine that the tone will be more family orientated, but Luisi is keen on scaring the beJesus out of audiences.
‘The tone is going to be a little darker, a little more traditional horror than the Warwick Davis ones that people remember, trying to find a way to please fans of that genre but at the same time this is really being played for scares.’
Speaking of Warwick Davis, he may pop up in the new movie, but that will be the only link to the original films.
‘Maybe a cameo. I don’t know at this point. The script is still in development… it is a true reboot of the franchise.’
THE LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS is not the only spooooooooky WWE film we canexpect to see, as SCOOBY DOO AND THE CURSE OF THE GHOST BEAR will the The Mystery Machine pull up at Wrestlemania!
‘So it’ll be animated versions of our superstars. They’ve all voiced their own characters. We had fun recording sessions with everyone from Vince McMahon to John Cena to The Miz doing that one as well. Then the Scooby voices are voiced by the voice actors from Scooby, and there’s a tradition in Scooby of bringing in other iconic characters and personalities to the Scooby-Doo mysteries, so it was fertile ground and we’re just really excited about it. We think that’s going to be something that all of our fans can really enjoy, as well as all the fans of Scooby. Yeah, the reaction from both Scooby fans and WWE fans was staggering. People were just overwhelmed and excited. We got phone calls from moms saying, “My boys love WWE and now you’re going to create something that I can watch with them. I’m thrilled to see that.’
We at THN love movies, obviously. and some of us love wrestling almost as much. With the exception of Dwayne Johnson’s amazing success, the two seldom make good bedfellows, which makes us pretty sad. So will either of these projects give us movie/wrestling fans the successful crossover we would dearly love? Let us know what you think below. If you smell what we’re cooking.
Risotto.
We’re cooking risotto.
THE LEPRECHAUN: ORIGINS is set to come out sometime this year, possibly March to coincide with Wrestlemania 29 while SCOOBY DOO AND THE CURSE OF THE GHOST BEAR is pencilled in for March 2014 to celebrate Wrestlemania 30.
Source: Crave Online
