Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank

[GeffreyDrogon]

With the first trailer for the long-belated Blazing Samurai (now called Paws of Fury: The Legend of Hank) coming out this Monday, well, it will be the beginning of the end of the story about the troubled production of a film that had been delayed from time to time again since 2016.

What do I think about it? Well, I don't understand why Mel Brooks thinks that making a reimagination of his classic Blazing Saddles as a kid's movie is a great idea. Saddles wasn't for children and is somehow controversial today for lampooning racism. However, I don't have high hopes for this film, though I've been thinking about it because of how many times it had been delayed.

Also, Rob Minkoff is somehow directing this film. I know "From the director of The Lion King" will be on the posters and in the trailers, but we know for fact that people don't really care about who directs a film as much as what actors are in the film. This video explains that in a nutshell...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yq_MBc0DAas

[EricJ]

What do I think about it? Well, I don't understand why Mel Brooks thinks that making a reimagination of his classic Blazing Saddles as a kid's movie doesn't sound that great.

I not only CAN, I can understand why they had to change the title.

[Ben]

Phew…! So glad they changed this, even last minute, so that it basically has nothing to do with Blazing Saddles, a title specific to a truly one-off film, and a classic of comedy cinema. Besides, that already got its literal animated title translation, in the film within a film by Terrence and Philip in the South Park movie: Asses Of Fire.

This seems to have been a long-gestating concept/script that had been doing the rounds, like, forever, before someone caught poor Mel on an unguarded day, and he agreed to give his name to the project. I don’t believe he actually had much to do with it, other than some initial development back then, when the film suddenly became Blazing Samurai — a title that just frankly never even worked or made any kind of sense — merely because he once made a film called Blazing Saddles.

As such, one can’t say Mel thought it was a "good idea" to "reimagine" Saddles: this doesn’t do this either way. Mel already has his reimagining in the works, with a Producers/Young Frankenstein musical version that Covid seems to have put the brakes on for the moment. In fact, I wonder if Warner Bros. had finally become aware or more concerned about this new animated film and "suggested" they change the title as they may have thought that this clearly won’t be bringing anything new to the franchise and indeed might dent its popularity to the point of affecting what they do with Saddles down the line.

Or Paramount, having picked it up, realising that it really does have little to do with Saddles and not wanting an infringement situation with Warners, thought a clean sweep would be best, also attempting to disassociate itself from the troubled production. Either way, I never saw this as part of the Brooks canon in anything more than a lending of the name anyway. While he’s always up for revisiting past glories (just *how* long has that Spaceballs sequel been coming?), he was always just kind of "attached" to this, and it’s looked and sounded terrible from day one.

I’m slightly more saddened for poor Minkoff, who looked like he was set for a stellar career after the Littles, but now seems to have joined other Disney Renaissance directors in slumming it on anything for a job gigs. The fact that this also just got a really boring, obvious, hackneyed and stale title also points to the fact that no-one has any high hopes for this whatsoever. The only thing that might save it is if Cinesite's animation suddenly bursts out of nowhere and wows us all, though we still haven’t seen anything from this in *seven* years in the making.


UPDATE: uh, no. Cinesite's animation won’t save this movie. There was supposed to be a trailer drop during the Nickelodeon awards yesterday, but it hasn’t shown up online yet. There *are* some pirate camera feeds floating around, but I’ll not link to anything like that. Let’s just say that it does indeed look *awful*, and I’m glad it now seems totally unconnected to Brooks' earlier film, and that he only appears to be a cast member now. That July date ensures this will crash and burn faster than Winnie The Pooh…

[EricJ]

Betting pool open for when this shows up on Netflix...

[Ben]

I think it’s already been snapped up for Paramount+. I was surprised it was even getting a cinema release!

[Daniel]

Trailer officially up:

[GeffreyDrogon]

I honestly don't know what to think of it, it feels like another one of those "underdog wants to great like the people he admires" movies, and the typical toilet humor doesn't help in any way. However, at least we get to know what that huge cat from the original "Blazing Samurai" poster whose hind end is shown is.

I simply don't really care.

[Dacey]

Okay. The gag at the end where they charge at each other is pretty funny.

[Daniel]

Yeah, I also chuckled at the send a tweet part.

[GeffreyDrogon]

That is, at least.

[Bill1978]

I'm more likely to check this out that Marmaduke. I at least got to the end of the trailer unlike the Marmaduke trailer. And I admit I had a couple of laughs, unlike Marmaduke

[GeffreyDrogon]

I agree with you. At least Paws of Fury looks nice to look at, though its whole troubled production is a little worrisome. Let's hope that this will at least do better for Paramount Animation than Monster Trucks.

[Daniel]

Trailer 2:

[Ben]

And, somewhat surprisingly but delightedly — since it means I won’t have to pay to see it — this just got trailed on the Sky Showcase channel here, so it’ll be popping up in the UK as an "original" in the next few weeks… Slightly odd, since Sky is Universal owned, not Paramount, but I won’t be complaining!

[GeffreyDrogon]

Do any of you think this will do well?