Original Midnight Run star Charles Grodin and director Martin Brest might be reteaming with Robert De Niro for the proposed sequel to the 1988 buddy comedy.
Deadline is reporting that Universal Pictures is hoping that Grodin will be back to reprise his mob accountant character who was drug across country in the original film by De Niro’s bounty hunter. Originally, it was thought that De Niro’s Jack Walsh would be chasing the son of Grodin’s Jonathan Mardukas across country in the sequel. But now it looks like that idea may be undergoing some modification if Grodin agrees. As Grodin told Deadline, “I’ve been led to believe by someone I won’t name that they will ask me and I will consider it.”
The studio also seems keen in bringing Brest on to the project as well, though it is not known if it is a directorial or just a producer capacity. Although the director hasn’t worked since 2003’s box office bomb Gigli, he is still the man responsible for the original Beverly Hills Cop and Scent Of A Woman. I’m hoping that Gigli was an aberration and that Brest still has it in him to deliver the cinematic goods.
Grodin has been mostly retired from acting since the mid-90s, choosing to concentrate on raising his son. But Grodin still seems reluctant to dive back in to acting full time, instead looking for gigs that will get him back to his Connecticut home at the end of the day. He even recently turned down an offer to reprise his Great Muppet Caper character for the new upcoming Muppet film stating “Jim Henson was dear to me but I’m not flying 6000 miles to Los Angeles to work one day.”
If I had to guess, I would say that Grodin’s involvement will be fairly limited, perhaps to just a couple of scenes. But for fans of the original, and I count myself as one, would that feel rather slight? I think that what folks will want from a Midnight Run sequel is a full-on re-teaming of De Niro and Grodin and that less might be disappointing.
