Lights, Camera, (Kung Fu) Action!

I know that many of you have already heard this, but I think it's gone far enough that I can blog it. There is a remake/adaptation of the 80's classic "The Karate Kid" being made. Filming starts in Beijing this summer and will star Jackie Chan and Will Smith's son Jaden (The Pursuit of Happyness and The Day the Earth Stood Still) as the the "kid." Taraji P. Henson (The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) will play the mom.

This spring they had open calls for 3 parts for the friends of the main character. All had to be white, and 1 is an American. Cameron went to the open call and then went back 3 more times to meet with different people and audition. Last week (the week we were leaving Beijing) he was offered a role in the movie. It's a supporting part, but at this point it does have 8-10 lines, which is quite a lot (I think!) for a newbie! Of course, that could change, but he's been guaranteed 20 days of work and will get paid a nice sum for that time. Of course he's very excited--and so are we! What a great opportunity--one that we were willing to adjust our summer plans for. He and I will probably leave around July 4th to head back to Beijing (we are still waiting to hear). He'll have a couple days of work that week, and then start up around the 23rd of July for about 4-6 weeks. He will end up missing some school that first month--we have a friend who teaches with us whose husband tutors but doesn't work (a former Montana smoke-jumper from Missoula, if you need a small-world reference!) who will be onset with him to watch him and tutor him when I'm at work. It will be a lot of work for us to make sure it goes well for him, but it's such a great opportunity to meet interesting people and get a glimpse into movie making that we are certainly willing to do that for him.

There has been quite a bit of kvetching and moaning about on the 'net about how this movie just canNOT be made, that it will violate the perfection of the original, blah, blah, blah (although now that the title was changed to "The Kung Fu Kid" and it appears to be more of an adaptation rather than a remake, people seem placated). But to those people, I have only 1 thing to say:

Because, DAMN--that movie was bad. Even if Hilary did go on to win 2 Oscars. But then, I got to thinking--even people who appear in completely sucky productions can go on to big things. Case in point:

From this:

To this:





So I figure the opportunities are endless! Get out your old pics and video of Cameron so you can say you knew him when!