More 80s remakes are on the way. Footloose was announced long before the new Karate Kid did Kung Fu on the box office charts — pardon the mixed martial arts metaphor — but it’s finally got a principal cast and a release date. It’ll open in April 2011. Today they announced that dancer Kenny Wormald won the lead role (once meant for Zac Efron). Kenny will kick of his Sunday shoes to cut loose, footloose in the famous Kevin Bacon role.
The producers claim that that Bacon magic will happen again. But how much like Kevin is Kenny? Let’s see: Kenny is a sandy haired 25 year old dancer from Boston with a couple of movies on the resume already (nothing major apart from the lead role in dance movie Center Stage:Turn It Up). Kevin was a sandy haired 25 year old actor from Phillly with a handful of movies on his resume already (including future classics Animal House and Friday the 13th) when he nabbed the lead role in the original Footloose. There are similarities. History might repeat itself at the box office but we highly doubt that Kenny Wormald will one day marry Kyra Sedgwick and have a party game named after himself. Those things only happen once!
† “Great Moments in Screen Bitchery”
† Happy Birthday Meryl Streep! (A Retrospective)
† Tom Hanks’ Career in Movie Posters
† Follow Nathaniel R. on Twitter!