Tony Scott returns to unintentional satire with ‘Narco Sub’

I had a chance to see Tony Scott’s most recent movie, Unstoppable on cable a few weeks ago, and if you haven’t seen it, allow me to summarize: there’s a train, and its brakes are out. Are you still with me? Denzel Washington and his young white mentor RISK THEIR JOBS to stop the train (against their boss’s wishes! because he’s a greedy business man! he doesn’t care about orphanages, only trains!), which they eventually manage to do by USING THE SAME THING THEY TRIED IN THE FIRST TEN MINUTES OF THE MOVIE. I guess what I’m saying is, I realize Tony Scott has made a few decent movies in the past (True Romance, Man on Fire, The Last Boy Scout), but those had to have been freak accidents.

Anyway, now that Tony Scott has made two train movies in a row, he’s getting back to his Crimson Tide roots with another submarine movie, the hilariously titled “Narco Sub.” Presumably it will one day make a fine addition to his BIG THINGS THAT GO VROOM ouevre.

Twentieth Century Fox acquired the action thriller spec Narco Sub from David Guggenheim with Tony Scott attached to direct. Guggenheim developed the script with Simon Kinberg and it has become a priority at Fox. Described as reminiscent of Scott’s Crimson Tide and Man on Fire

Now, this is an amazing description, because Man on Fire was about Latin American drug gangs and Crimson Tide was set on a submarine, both directed by Tony Scott. So saying Tony Scott’s “Narco Sub” is “Like Crimson Tide meets Man on Fire” is actually less descriptive than the actual two-word title. THE PLOT THINS! DUNT DUNT DUNNNN….

…the plot for Narco Sub involves the semi-submersible crafts South American drug cartels employ to smuggle cocaine into the U.S.

“Believe it or not, the plot of the movie NARCO SUB involves submarines and drugs, ‘sub’ being short for ‘submersible watercraft,’ and ‘narco’ being a Spanish word for narcotics trafficker. Fox plans to drop leaflets across eight major cities in the hopes of educating the public in advance of the release.”

Guggenheim has a bunch of works in progress. His script Santiago based on a pitch Fox bought last year is out to filmmakers with Kinberg producing. He also has Safe House opening February 10 with Washington and Ryan Reynolds. Also in post is Guggenheim’s spec project Medallion with Nic Cage directed by Simon West from Millennium Films.  McG also just signed to direct Guggenheim’s Puzzle Palace for Summit, and Guggenheim just sold another pitch 364 to Universal for Ron Howard to direct. [Deadline]

If you’ll remember, Safe House stars Denzel Washington as a ROGUE CIA AGENT who forms an UNLIKELY PARTNERSHIP with a young, white Safe House guard played by RYAN REYNOLDS. Medallion, despite sounding like the Nic Cagiest movie ever, actually stars Cage as a MASTER THIEF whose DAUGHTER GETS KIDNAPPED, and he has just a few hours to USE A PARTICULAR SET OF SKILLS to find her while LOCKED IN THE TRUNK OF A CAB. You may wonder how David Guggenheim is able to be so prolific, and I think the answer is that his scripts are actually mad libs. He might be the next Allan Loeb.

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