Nu Image – producers of such classics as ELECTRIC ROBOT SHARK ATTACK III and MICHAEL DUDIKOFF’S ROLLER-BLADE NINJA 12 — announced at Cannes today that they’ve somehow put together $60 million to produce RIGHTEOUS KILL, an actual movie starring method-acting legends Robert DeNiro and Al Pacino.

Though this marks the second time the teaming of these 70’s heavyweights has been milked as a marketing “hook” (think HEAT), Nu Image honcho Avi Lerner promises not just two showpiece scenes (as with the parenthetically aforementioned) but a whole movie of Bob and Al sharing screen-time, holding hands, singing folk songs and dirty-dancing:

“This is an event in world history. They were in two scenes in ‘Heat.’ In this movie, they are in the whole thing together.”

Okay Avi. I’m no stranger to hyperbole, but an “event in world history?” So are you saying this movie’s up there with D-Day and the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or are you saying this movie is the next 9/11? Because that would kick ass.

Not that I’m getting my hopes up. DeNiro hasn’t been a serious actor since the grunge years. He traded in his Raging Bull cred the day he signed on to do the humorless cinematic abortion known as MEET THE PARENTS.

“But MEET THE PARENTS made bla-bla-bla at the box office!” reads the whiny email I’ll inevitably get from some industry douchebag who feels the need to defend every piece of shit movie just because it made money. I don’t care. Fuck off. I hate you and I only pretend to be your friend because you might help my career someday. Plus you get that good sticky chronic and can get us into that one club on Cahuenga. And you let me borrow your car that one time. And you always pick me up at the airport. Plus you have HD cable and the kick-ass 52” plasma. And you always get the UFC pay-per-views and are too scared to say anything when I “forget” to chip in. And your fridge is always stocked with good beer. Plus we’re like “cousins” or something. But whatever. Just because a movie makes money does not mean I can’t be offended by it. And MEET THE PARENTS offended me to the core. Why? It was a non-funny waste of time and it only bothers me MORE that for whatever reason a lot people thought it was a worth seeing. I couldn’t even get all the way through I hated it so much, which makes it the only movie besides ENCINO MAN that I’ve walked out on. And you know what? ENCINO MAN was a better movie. The entire PAULY SHORE canon is better than MEET THE PARENTS. Fuck that movie. I’d rather watch my grandmother get gang-raped by hobos than watch that piece of shit.

But I digress. RIGHTEOUS KILL starts shooting this August in Connecticut. Along with Lerner it will be produced by Randall Emmett, Boaz “my assistant’s name is Lady Vengeance and she embodies pure evil” Davidson, Georg Furla and Alexandra Milchan (who has trouble saying certain words). Executive producers are Danny Dimbort and Trevor Short (their names rhyme, tee-hee!).

Tags: Robert DeNiro, Al Pacino, Cannes, Righteous Kill, Meet the Parents

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