One long in development project that has been on our radar for a while has been the remake of the classic comedy Porky’s being spearheaded by radio personality Howard Stern. Stern has mentioned it on and off for some time now, and considering the long development process he went through for the adaptation of his book Private Parts, we know that he can be fairly demanding when it comes to making sure a screen play is as good as possible.

Unfortunately, it is looking as if a legal tussle as to who actually owns the rights to remake director Bob Clarke’s 1982 teen sexploitation classic could hold up his plans to get the project in front of cameras anytime soon.

While Stern and his co-producers claim that the bought the remake rights to Porky’s from the film’s original producers back in 2002, a group called Lontano Investments claim that they purchased the same rights back in 1994. To further complicate matters Lontano is being sued by another production company, Mola Entertainment, over a deal the two made concerning the remake rights.

It turns out that in 2001, Mola struck a deal with Lontano for the rights to make a new Porky’s sequel. Part of that deal required that Mola make a new Porky’s film within a certain time limit or the rights would revert back to Lontano. When that deadline loomed near, Mola churned out the quick and cheap Pimpin’ Pee Wee (filmed under the title Porky’s: The College Years) for under $1 million dollars with Australian director Brian Trenchard-Smith behind the camera to satisfy the contractual demands to hold on to the rights further. (It sounds like a similar situation to how Roger Corman rushed in to production on his never-officially-released Fantastic Four film in the 1990s.)

Lontano, however, decided that the Pimpin’ Pee Wee didn’t satisfy the terms of the contract, claiming that the film’s budget needed to be at least $10 million for the rights continuation clause to kick in. Mola has in turn, filed suit in Los Angeles, hoping that a judge will rule that they did indeed fulfill the terms of their contract.

No matter what the outcome of the lawsuit, Stern’s planned Porky’s remake is going to be affected. If a judge rules in Mola’s favor, the production company will have until April 1, 2014 to make their next Porky’s film before their rights expire. In this case, Stern could join forces with Mola or sit back and wait, hoping that they don’t meet the deadline.

But if a judge favors Lontano, there will very likely be another lawsuit between Stern, Lontano and the original Porky’s producers as to who actually holds the remake rights. Over the course of his radio career, Stern has been litigious when it has come to contracts he has been a part of going unfulfilled by the other party. If the Porky’s producers did indeed sell him film rights that weren’t theirs to sell, I would not be surprised if they would be summoned to answer for their actions in court.

Hopefully, all this can be resolved fairly quickly and easily. Stern has not had the best of luck with his production company. Outside of the early 2000s FX network comedy Son Of The Beach, he hasn’t had any project come to fruition. An animated series for the Spike cable outlet called Howard Stern: The High School Years, with Michael Cera cast as the teenage Stern, died when an agreement over the animation budget couldn’t be reached. Stern also has a planned remake of the comedy Rock And Roll High School in development with a script by Alex Winter, though the status of that project is currently unknown.

Via Hollywood Reporter.

As we’ve known for some time, the hold up in getting a third Ghostbusters film in front of cameras has been almost entirely dependent on whether or not star Bill Murray deigns to slide an unlicensed nuclear accelerator onto his back for one more go-round. Everybody else involved seem to like the screenplayt by Gene Stupnitsky and Lee Eisenberg and they’re just waiting on Murray to give it the nod as well.

The problem is Murray hasn’t read the script yet.

In an interview with Howard Stern on his Sirius-XM, Murray admitted that he had been procrastinating on getting to the screenplay.

[Producer Ivan Reitman]’s puzzled that I haven’t gotten to this [script]. Well, I’ll get to it. I gotta get to it. I feel bad. I got a message and I think people — I don’t want to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s not the foremost thing in my mind, so I don’t think about it.

Murray again explained his reticence with a line he has used before in interviews – “I only made one sequel. It was Ghostbusters 2, and it didn’t end up the way it was presented.”

Although Murray was calling in to the Stern show to discuss the DVD release of his latest film Get Low, he wound up talking about a good portion of his career in a discussion that lasted almost an hour. You can hear all of it below. His thoughts about Ghostbusters 3 comes midway through the second part.

Dustin Hoffman gave a rare interview today when he called in to Howard Stern’s Sirius/XM Satellite Radio show yesterday morning. The fifteen minute conversation ranged from Hoffman’s early career when he shared an New York City apartment with Gene Hackman and Robert Duvall to New York state politics and former Governor Eliot Spitzer.

Hoffman called in at the behest of his Los Angeles assistant and driver Adam Fox, as part of a contest the Stern Show is having to see who the biggest celebrity a listener could get to call in.

As Stern quizzed Hoffman on his various films, the topic turned to roles that that Hoffman had a chance to play, but turned down.

“There was twice I could have worked with Bergman,” Hoffman stated. He passed on the first opportunity in order to be close to his pregnant wife. He let the second opportunity pass by when he “wasn’t feeling the script.”

“There was once I could have worked with Felini,” added Hoffman, explaining that he thought that the Italian director’s habit of filming without sound recording only to record the dialogue later would harm his performance.

“These are all terrible rationalizations,” Hoffman admitted.

“Steven Spielberg is a good friend,” Hoffman continued. “I’ve worked with him once [on Hook], but he likes to remind me that I’ve turned him down four times.” After explaining that he had turned down roles in Spielberg’s Close Encounters Of The Third Kind and Schindler’s List, Hoffman joked that “I’m working through it in therapy.”

While not a fan, Hoffman told Stern that he first heard of him from director Barry Sonnenfeld while working together on Rain Man. Stern used the opportunity to talk about the project he had almost collaborated with Sonnenfeld on.

Stern also took the time to ask Hoffman about an incident that he was involved in that provided much discussion on the show at the time it happened- Lily Tomlin’s much publicized eruption on the set of David O. Russell’s.

“I take her defense and the director’s,” Hoffman explained. “The fight was really over artistic principals. My viewpoint on that is that if YouTube had been around as long as my career, you’d know that that was the norm. It happens at least once on a set.”

Not too fat for the big screen...

Howard Stern may not be the only member of his popular Sirius XM satellite radio show cast to get a movie based on his life.

Comic sideman Artie Lange stated on this morning’s show that he has “several very nice offers from major movie people” for the film rights to his recent bestselling autobiography Too Fat To Fish.

The revelation came during a phone interview with movie Richard Roper, who reviewed Lange’s 200- independent comedy Beer League as “a better movie than Spider-Man 3.”

Although it would be way too early to even begin thinking about casting the film if it were to eventually go before the cameras, that didn’t stop the crew from some wild speculation. While Lange would be the obvious choice and has plenty of film experience to play himself, he sounded like it really wasn’t a priority to him.

“I’m in an interesting dilemma,” Lange admitted. “I’m thinking about taking a boat load of money and just saying, ‘Fuck it, do whatever you want. I could care less.’ … “For the right price, I would gladly go on Letterman and say ‘See Jack Black as me in this film!’”

Lange’s book is a funny, and oft times bittersweet, look at his life growing up in New Jersey. It is painfully honest about his feelings over the accident that left his father paralyzed and about his long battle with drug addiction. There’s plenty of material there for more than one movie in the book. Hopefully, this can make it past the negotiations stage and all the way through to cinema screens.

Howard Stern starring in a Marvel Comics superhero movie?

It almost happened according to a revelation the talk show host stated this morning on his Sirius-XM Satellite Radio program. Stern was chatting with a caller who had asked if there was ever a chance that he would ever considering resurrecting his comedy superhero film project The Adventures Of Fartman. (See our review of the hilarious script written for the project here.) Stern stated that he would like to get around to someday before disclosing that he came close to making another superhero movie.

I met with these guys from Marvel a few years ago and they had an idea for a superhero movie for me, but it was a serious superhero movie. I liked that better. There were some funny aspects to it because my parents were involved, my real parents. It was funny.

I would have done that movie. I don’t know what happened. We just kind of burned out. They went off on another project, some stupid thing like Iron Man, and we never got around to it.

Unfortunately, Stern did not specify which character he had been approached with. While I am more a reader of DC Comics’ output than I am of Marvel’s, I think I am fairly conversant with Marvel’s characters, but after wracking my brains for the past couple of hours I can not think of any superhero character that Howard Stern would be a good fit for.

Outside of Spider-Man, I can’t even think of a character whose parents or parental-type figures are an active part of their story. Thor? While I think seeing Stern’s father Ben (“Shut up! Sit down!”) as Odin would be a rather interesting and funny way to go, I just don’t see Howard himself as the God of Thunder. Unless it was butt thunder, that is.

Every now and then you hear about some interesting ideas for movie casting that never panned out for one reason or another. This is one of those stories with just enough details to be maddeningly tantalizing. Hopefully, more information as to what this project might have been will come to light.

Previously, Stern had been rumored to be in consideration for the part of the villainous Scarecrow in a projected fifth Batman movie back in the 1990s, though Stern always denied that he had been approached by anyone involved.

Story & Screenplay by J. F. Lawton
Based on a character created by Howard Stern
Undated Draft

Superheroes come with all different powers, but there was a time when we almost had a costumed avenger with a most unusual power- super flatulence. That hero was Fartman, created by one of the most recognized name in the entertainment industry- Howard Stern.

At the end of the 1980s, Stern was on a meteoric rise in his career. His reputation had already spread beyond the small number of markets his show was syndicated into and even outside the radio industry itself. The general public was quickly becoming acquainted with him through his numerous appearances on NBC’s Late Night With David Letterman as well as on such daytime fare ranging from Hollywood Squares to Donahue. Most importantly, though, his show began airing in Los Angeles in 1991. Hollywood executives began tuning in on their commute from their Malibu homes to their respective film studios started to become acquainted with Stern.

It wasn’t long before his agent began receiving calls from the West Coast with film offers. And Howard was ready for them, with the idea of bringing one of his radio show’s recurring characters to the silver screen- Fartman.

Stern created Fartman back in March 1989 with a bit in which the flatulent superhero called the Iranian Embassy in New York. Listeners loved the character and he soon made many repeat appearances, culminating in Stern’s appearance at the MTV Video Music Awards in September, 1992 as Fartman. When Stern had signed a deal with New Line Cinema, he had no concrete plan for what his first movie would be. However, when announcing the deal on The Tonight Show With Jay Leno, Stern joked that his feature film debut would be The Adventures Of Fartman.  J. F. Lawton, who had already written Pretty Woman and Under Siege, was watching Leno that night and Stern’s off-hand joke sparked his imagination. Feeling that Fartman would be a natural for a raunchy comedy vehicle, the writer lobbied New Line Cinema for the job to script the feature. Just two months after Stern’s VMA appearance, Variety was announcing that Fartman was headed to the big screen.

Not just a comedy, Lawton’s script for The Adventures Of Fartman reads as a parody of the superhero film genre at that point, opening with spoofs of perhaps the most recognizable superheroes in the media- Batman and Superman.

Fartman fades in from black on a riff of the recent blockbuster Batman. Where Tim Burton’s film opens with a family being mugged in a Gotham City alley and the muggers in turn being caught by Batman, the script starts off with a hooker in the Hell’s Kitchen section of Manhattan being mugged and then the attackers being subdued by the flatulent superhero. Of course, there’s the Stern spin on things, so the hooker is actually a transvestite named Bruno.

The script then segues into a quick recap of who Fartman is via a voice over reminiscent of the old George Reeves 1950s Superman television series. “Faster than a hurricane! More powerful than an atomic blast! Able to fly through the air propelled by his own gas!” intones an announcer. Through the voice over we learn that Fartman is really “mild mannered pornographer Clyde Flatiron,” and that his secret identity is known only to “his trusted colonic therapist, Heather Green.” A montage follows showing Fartman as a media darling, receiving the key to New York City from Mayor David Dinkins and being interviewed by Larry King, Jay Leno and Barbara Walters, while newspaper headlines report Kim Bassinger leaving her then husband Alec Baldwin for the superhero. On a newscast, the secretary general of the United Nations intones “All that is good about mankind is symbolized in one man: Fartman.”

At the end of the montage, the movie flashback’s to give us Fartman’s origins. Clyde Flatiron is editor of the weekly smut tabloid the New York Butt. Although he works long hours, he longs to be working for a more reputable paper as a real journalist. His stress levels send him out for frequent colonics from Heather, who often lends a sympathetic ear to his troubles. He’s so depressed and wrapped up in his work that he doesn’t even seem to take notice of the advances from his buxom twin secretaries, both named Sally.

One afternoon, while ruminating on his miserable life, the hot news story Clyde has always been looking for walks into his office on the gorgeous, shapely legs of Mercedes Sterling. The beautiful Mercedes tells him that the successful New York real estate developer Mr. Complex has been hiring criminals to overrun Central Park in order to have the city shut it down so he can purchase the land cheap. An infatuated Clyde doesn’t believer her, but runs the story anyway.

As fate would have it, Mercedes story is true, and Complex – a very short man whose first name is Napoleon – is not happy that it was published, even if it was in something as disreputable as the New York Butt. Complex’s land grab of Central Park is only the first half of his plan. The second involves the building he wants to place on the land- a large tower, “ten times higher than the World Trade Center” with a rounded top with two large globes at its base. Yes, he wants to build a giant phallic high rise.

Complex pays a threatening visit to Clyde at his office, but the plucky newspaper man won’t back down. Realizing that Mercedes wasn’t crazy, he launches his staff into a full investigation, which they tackle with unorthodox methods but surprisingly good results. As Clyde continues to publish new information on the story, even the more legitimate press begins to notice. This is something Complex can not have, so he orders Clyde killed. Complex’s thugs follow Clyde to his regular appointment with Heather and try to kill him by substituting toxic waste with the water normally used for the colonic.

But since this is a superhero story, toxic waste doesn’t kill, it grants super powers. In this case, Clyde’s bowels are now supercharged – in part due to the atomic waste and in part due to the chili dogs Clyde is constantly eating – his farts are mighty blasts. With Heather helping him to harness this power, after making him pledge to not use his power for evil, Clyde decides to fight back at Complex under an alias that “will strike fear in their hearts at the very sound of it!” Fartman! He dons a yellow spandex costume complete with over-stuffed cod piece and cut out buttocks so his might power doesn’t de-pants him the first time he lets loose.

Of course, as Fartman becomes more popular throughout the city, he becomes a danger to Complex’s plans. Searching for a weakness, he discovers one- Beano. Will Complex defeat Fartman? Will Clyde find true love with Mercedes?

While this draft is undated, it is very strong and feels ready to go in front of cameras. The jokes are good and don’t all revolve around sex, though there are plenty that do. During a meeting where Complex spells out his master plan to a group of investors, one objects saying, “My bank can’t support an enterprise that is not only illegal and immoral, but is financially unsound. I mean, this isn’t the eighties.” There is also comedy potential of the six foot plus Stern matching wits with the barely five foot Complex. The Sally twins are also a source of constant surprises, with the story revealing them to more than just bimbos at various junctures.

The script also has plenty of great comic moments that turn superhero conventions on their head. While trying to change into his superhero outfit in a small bathroom to rescue an elderly woman from muggers, he gets tangled up in his clothes. As he tries to untangle himself, the muggers slowly loose their enthusiasm for the beating they’re giving the old woman. Fartman finally shows up as they began to walk away bored. Fartman is a bit quicker to respond to another mugging, but still arrives in time to see the potential victim shoot the mugger in the head with a .357 Magnum. While his assistance is unneeded, the potential victim is still courteous enough to thank Fartman for at least bothering to stop and help. During his training sessions with Heather, we see Fartman in a gym, shooting blasts at a boxer’s speed bag and practicing “target shooting.” After Fartman rescues Mercedes from Complex, the two take a romantic flight similar to the one Lois Lane and Superman took, right down to Mercedes reciting in voiceover a song called “Can You Smell Love?”.

The script ends with a teaser for a sequel, Fartman 2: Air Assault, which would introduce Fartman’s sidekick Booger Boy, The Nose Wonder, Fartgirl, Fartdog, the flatulent canine, the Fartcave and the Fartmobile. It ends with Fartman bursting into the dressing room of Radio City Music Hall’s Rockettes exclaiming to the dozen scantily clad women- “Listen carefully… It sounds crazy, but I must make love with every woman in this room, or the world as we know it will be destroyed!” Now who doesn’t want to see that movie?

Interestingly, after the film’s opening moments, Fartman doesn’t even appear until well past the halfway point, but Lawton keeps the story moving so well that it doesn’t become immediately apparent. Granted, perhaps another polish would have fleshed out a few things. I’m surprised that there wasn’t a fake commercial for Clyde’s paper featuring a catchphrase like “Have you seen what’s in the Butt this week?”

And of course, there is the question of whether any of Howard’s radio cohorts would have parts in the film. While it is hard to match a majority of his crew to specific parts, there is the small role of Clyde’s assistant editor Sam, who stutters when stressed, that seems like a fit for Stern’s celebrity interviewer “Stuttering” John Melendez. Having done the voiceover work on so many of the Stern show’s comedy bits over the years, it is hard to not hear Fred Norris’s voice reading the screenplay’s voiceover announcer’s lines. Lawton later admitted that he wrote the role of colonic technician Heather for Stern’s newswoman/co-host Robin Quivers.

Unfortunately, the script would never go before the cameras. Stern had decided to pull the plug, though not over any concerns or problems with the screenplay. Instead, it was over the deal that New Line wanted Stern to sign. The studio had recently lost millions when they failed to tie up the merchandising rights for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, who in the wake of the release of their live action movie in 1990 had become a veritable goldmine of tie-in products. Stern, however, had always voiced the concern of not taking advantage of his audience by putting out substandard products for them to buy. Without control of the merchandising of the film, he was concerned that his fans would be turned off by cheap products designed more for a quick cash grab than anything else. Sticking to his guns and with New Line unwilling to budge, Stern walked away from the project rather than give up the control that he has been accustomed to.

But Fartman lived on. The character continued to make appearances on the radio show. Stern talked about the struggle to make the movie in his book Private Parts, and the film version of the book opened with a recreation of his Video Music Awards appearance. The first few pages of Lawton’s Fartman script were adapted into comic book format for the Private Parts book. Stern has mentioned that he would like to return to the idea of making a Fartman movie on occasion, but no serious movement has ever been made. (Pun intended.) Rather than take a payday of close to $600,000.00, Lawton instead held on to the rights of his script on the chance that one day the project could be revived at another studio.

Perhaps, though, someday Stern will team with a director and get Fartman on to the Cineplex screens around the country. Superhero movies are certainly in vogue right now, with many big name directors looking at various comic book based projects. Perhaps John Waters would like to revisit his Smell-O-Vision concept? It seems like the perfect match.

Readers who have Sirius Satellite Radio may want to tune into the “Stern Superfan Roundtable” show on channel 101 at 7 pm tonight, to catch me as one of the four panelists on the show. Hosted by Mutt, the proprietor of the Stern Fan Network, “Superfan Roundtable” is an hour-long show where fans discuss all things Howard Stern. I’ll be on this evening giving my views as a two-decades long listener. And if there’s a little bit of movie talk too, that won’t be so bad for me.

The rest of the day will be fairly lite one posting, though I’ll be trying to post some updates of my trip into Manhattan and Sirius’s studios via Twitter.

The possibility of two wildly different comic masters such as Howard Stern and Woody Allen appearing in a movie together is enough to boggle the mind, yet such a film project almost came to pass.

On his Sirius Satellite Radio show this morning, Howard Stern briefly talked about how a year ago he was offered a starring role in a film opposite Woody Allen. The discussion came about in response to a caller’s question if Stern would ever work with Woody Allen.

“From a creative standpoint, I would love to work with Woody Allen,” Stern said. “But from a moral standpoint I got a problem. There’s a million women in the world… [but what Allen did] that’s just creepy and dark.”

Stern is referring to the much publicized break up with Allen and Farrow’s longterm relationship when Allen began seeing one of Farrow’s adopted children, Soon-yi Previn. There is a 34 year age gap between Allen and Previn. At the time of the breakup, Stern was very vocal about his feelings on the matter. As a ‘Thank you’ for his support, Farrow made a cameo appearance in Stern’s 1997 autobiographical comedy Private Parts.

Stern does admit that his admiration for Allen makes the project still sound tempting to do.

“I got to be honest with you though, now that I’m sitting here thinking about it, I think I would throw almost all of my morality out the window and maybe I would have done this movie. But you know, at the end of the day…”

While he went to say that he wasn’t sure he could give details of the proposed project’s plot, Stern did reveal that it was not something that Allen wrote. He also said that Allen had already agreed to the project.

“I think it would have been brilliant,” Stern enthused. “It was a very funny idea. If you heard the premise of the movie, you’d laugh your ass off. If I said it to you right now, you’d say ‘I have to see that movie.’”

While Stern has on occasion mentioned that he continues to get offers for movie appearances, today’s revelation was one of the rare times he went into any detail. Given that Allen is reticent to appear in anything he hasn’t written or will be directing himself, makes this never-happened project all the more fascinating.

“I have mad respect for his gifts and talents,” Stern stated. “But geez, that’s a f***ed up, dark place he went to. If Woody Allen captured Osama bin Laden, maybe I could forgive him.”

I side with Stern when it comes to Woody Allen. I greatly admire his talents – Love And Death is still one of the funniest comedies every made – but have real problems with how he has conducted his personal life.

Still, the cinematic collision of these comedians is in intriguing. While their styles of comedy are different, both their comic sensibilities stem from their own neuroses and are informed by their upbringing in the New York City area. (Allen was reared in Brooklyn while Stern grew up in the Long Island community of Roosevelt.) It must have been one amazing script that was able to interest these two.

If anyone has any further information on this project, please pass it along.

Yesterday, while discussing the movie offers he has received over the years in the wake of his 1997 autobiographical Private Parts, talk radio icon Howard Stern mentioned that he was in talks with director Barry Levinson to star in last year’s political satire Man Of The Year, with Stern in the lead role that was eventually taken by Robin Williams as a political satirist who runs for the highest office in the land. It was announcement that brought to mind visions of his 1994 aborted run for New York governor.

Ultimately, Stern turned down the project despite expressing a desire to really want to work with director Barry Levinson. At the time, Stern was making the move from his FCC-hampered terrestrial radio gig to his new home at Sirius Satellite radio and felt that Sirius deserved his full creative energies at the moment. He also mentioned that he felt the script could have used some punching-up and that he had some ideas in that direction. Unfortunately, Levinson was intent on shooting as soon as possible and couldn’t wait the few months that Stern needed to get to a point where he could concentrate on the film.

What made yesterday’s revelation interesting is that while Stern has mentioned receiving film offers in the past, he has only gone into this amount of detail about these offers once before. Following the release of Private Parts, Stern was set to play the supporting role of a record company executive in the Melanie Griffith project Jane. David Spade was cast as Stern’s character’s assistant. Preproduction on the film had gotten as far as wardrobe fittings before a portion of the funding fell through, resulting in a rescheduled shoot that Stern wasn’t available for. When he dropped out of the project, the rest of the funding for the film fell apart and it was never made.

What isn’t surprising is Stern’s insistence of a re-write of Man Of The Year’s script, especially if the draft he was concerned about is the same one Levinson shot with Williams. Stern has a record of being demanding when it comes to screenplays. The script for Private Parts was in development for nearly three years and had reportedly gone through several writers, including Peter Torokvei (Real Genius, Guarding Tess) before Len Blum and Michael Kalesniko delivered a draft that he approved. Other projects that Stern has announced in the past as developing have also stalled out in the scripting phase.