Only one King of Cool

I was surfing some of my favorite movie spoiler sites, joblo.com and The Movie Blog, today and came across a rumor that somewhat bothered me. It is being reported that Brad Pitt might star in a remake of the Steve McQueen classic, Bullitt (about a San Fransisco cop that...to say the least...is a badass). I have nothing against Brad Pitt in fact I like Brad Pitt. He is a fine actor and he's a cool actor. But in the realm of coolness, he's no Steve McQueen.

Granted I have a McQueen bias as he is my favorite actor of all time, but come on...there does not need to be a remake of Bullitt. The movie for all intended purposes invented the modern car charse scene...but even more than that the movie cemented McQueen's legend of being The King of Cool. Actors are still trying to rip that performance off.

I'll reluctantly admit that Bullitt doesn't have the classic status (yet) of some of its contemporaries but that is no reason to remake it. I'm not against the ideas of remakes...only ones that don't make sense. To me Bullitt doesn't seem dated or not relevant. I'm also somewhat puzzled why Pitt would want a film role that he can't really make his own. No matter how good he is...he will never measure up to McQueen's performance. (Look at some recent remakes...Vince Vaughn nailed his part in Psycho but it didn't come close to the original (Anthony Perkins). Denzel Washington put forth a solid performance in The Manchurian Candidate but it was overshadowed by Frank Sinatra's in the original). Unless he really wants to do the movie...and that is his prerogative...I can't see why he would want to do a remake.