Who said the era of 80’s revivals was over? Nope, not by a long shot with Deadline bringing their latest exclusive on the forthcoming Cannonball Run reboot with Get Hard and Tropic Thunder scribe Etan J. Cohen writing and directing for the franchise’s new home at Warner Bros.
Golden Harvest produced the original comedy trilogy in 1981, inspired by the Cannonball Baker Sea-To-Shining-Sea Memorial Trophy Dash of the 1970’s. The story focused on an illgeal cross-country race and its contestants willing to pull their own dirty tricks to achieve victory, with all three films host to a bevy of popular celebs in some capacity, including Burt Reynolds, Frank Sinatra, Roger Moore, Dean Martin to name a few along with Sammy Davis Jr., Dom DeLuise, John Candy and even Jackie Chan during his earlier efforts to crossover from Hong Kong.
As a matter of history, the first film which fell to its share of woes production haste woes, was no stranger to on-set upheaval with then-24 year old stuntwoman, the now departed Heidi Von Beltz rendering quadruplegic after a stunt gone severly wrong. Incidentally, all stunt credits were removed from the film, nor was the injury or the litigation that ensued given mention in late director Hal Needham’s 2011 book, “Stuntman”, nor Reynolds’s 2015 memoir, “But Enough About Me…,” before Von Beltz’s passing last year.
Andre Morgan and Alan Gasmer are producing the film with Albert S. Ruddy and Raymond Chow executive producing.