The Greatest Show on Earth is coming to the big screen; Heat Vision reports that J. David Stem and David Weiss, the two screenwriters behind last summer’s adaptation The Smurfs, have been hired by Paramount to pen the script for Ringling Brothers, based on the legendary and still popular circus company. Specifics on the plot are being kept under wraps (assuming there is a plot) but it’s set in modern times and is being compared to family adventure comedies like A Night at the Museum and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Apparently the latter was a family comedy and not 90 minutes of Johnny Depp nightmare fuel. My mistake.
Stem and Weiss are currently at work on a Smurfs sequel, and their writing credits include Shrek 2, the classic Nickelodeon show Rugrats and its two movie incarnations (the crossover with The Wild Thornberries does not count, ever), and other family-oriented live-action films like Are We There Yet? and Daddy Day Camp. So there is at least some good to balance out the really bad.
That being said I don’t really have any desire to see a Ringling Brothers movie that will most likely be one giant commercial for the still touring circus and be filled with hijinks perpetrated by I assume a sassy elephant (mark my words: the elephant will have an attitude). I’d personally would much rather see something history-based, going into the troupe’s ascension in the late 18th century and its eventual purchase of its biggest competitor Barnum & Bailey in 1907, but Water for Elephants already filled the Hollywood quota of “period pieces about traveling circuses in the early 20th century.” The quota was 1, in case anyone was wondering.
Any interest in seeing Ringling Brothers?