Cooter Boycotts New Dukes Of Hazzard Movie

Making an original movie seems to be an impossible job these days. This summer alone has seen Batman Begins, Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, War Of The Worlds, The Fantastic Four, Bewitched, The Longest Yard…

As lazy and uninspired a choice it is to just remake an old film or TV series, this trend does has one hilarious plus point - all the old stars keep getting all shirty about being replaced.

This is precisely what’s happened with a star of the old Dukes Of Hazzard TV show (DVDs). Ben Jones, who played Cooter the mechanic, is boycotting the new Dukes Of Hazzard movie.

Jones wrote an open letter to fans on his Cooter’s Place website on Wednesday
condemning the remake. After he read a script, he was compelled to
write “From all I have seen and heard, the ‘Dukes’ movie is a sleazy insult
to all of us who have cared about the ‘Dukes of Hazzard’ for so long. Unless they clean it up before the August fifth release
date I would strongly recommend that true blue Dukes fans hold their
noses and pass this one up.”

Ben Jones, a former Democrat congressman who now owns a Dukes Of
Hazzard souvenir shop, is apparently worried that the new film is "a
sleazy insult" to the legions of fans that took the original series to
their hearts all those years ago.

Perhaps he has seen the provocative new music video by Jessica
Simpson - a star of the new movie -  for the soundtrack single These Boots Are Made For
Walking. Though if he had, he’d obviously be insulted more by the
bizarre ‘hiccoughing frog’ vocal technique she employed for the song
than the tired old ’sexy barmaid’ routine that goes with it.

Ben Jones is not alone in being a bit angry at being replaced in new
film remakes. The normally wonderful Gene Wilder even got his knickers
in a twist when he found out about the new Charlie And The Chocolate
Factory film. He claimed the new movie "is all about money. It’s just some people sitting around thinking ‘How can we
make some more money?’ Why else would you remake Willy Wonka?’‘

He’s perhaps deliberately forgetting that Willy Wonka was mainly
funded by Quaker Oats to promote a new range of Wonka candy bars, and
that their financial muscle even made the studio change the name from
Charlie And The Chocolate Factory.

Perhaps there is a very simple way to make old actors stop
complaining about remakes. Back when Ben Stiller and Owen Wilson remade
Starsky and Hutch, David Soul - an original cast member - laid into it,
claiming "They ain’t Starsky and Hutch and to cast them as such cheats a huge
audience who grew up with Glaser and Soul in the roles…(It will be)
another one of those bad, glitzy action pieces, like Charlie’s Angels."

Next thing you know, he’s getting paid to be in the film. And no more complaining.

"How can we make some more money?" indeed.

[story by Stuart Heritage]