‘9/0210″ star Jason Priestley is directing and starring in “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,” the first in a series of made-for-TV adaptations of film noir classics.
The new Fox series, “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang,” will comprise three TV movies per season adapted from ’40s- and ’50s-era movies culled from the 20th Century Fox film library.
“Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye,” starring James Cagney as a violent escaped con, was originally released in 1950.
Priestley’s version, expected to air in September, will feature “X-Files” co-star Nicholas Lea and Holt McCallany.
Its plot will be updated but, like other “Kiss, Kiss” movies, Priestley’s version will borrow heavily from the black-and-white “noir” classics known for their dark plots, desperate characters and gritty realism.
“Jason’s movie takes place in Los Angeles, which is unusual for a made-for-TV movie,” said Marci Pool, Fox’s senior vice president of movies and miniseries.
“‘Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye’ will be very important in terms of setting a tone for this series, which will have a certain look to it in terms of lighting, costumes, mood, etc.
“We’ll do the movies with young Fox stars and a lot of music,” Pool said. “That was always the idea.”
Pool said no casting has been done yet on Fox’s next “Kiss, Kiss, Bang, Bang” movie, “All Circuits Are Dead,” a remake of the 1953 Sam Fuller flick “Pickup on South Street,” starring Richard Widmark, and Thelma Ritter.
“We went through the vault of [20th Century Fox] films and there are some incredible movies in there,” Pool said. “They have wonderful, byzantine, Raymond Chandler-style plots. A lot of them are more well-known, while others are movies that only film buffs would know.”
Pool sees no obstacles in Fox’s ability to reach a younger audience with remakes of movies made before special effects.
Updates of Shakespeare, such as Leonardo DeCaprio’s “Romeo and Juliet” – and 18th-century literary classics like “Dangerous Liasons,” which became “Cruel Intentions” – have had no trouble doing big box office business.
Priestley hopes “Kiss Tomorrow Goodbye” will be “the first of many film noir remakes” he’ll do for Fox, he said recently.
