Less than a month after Jon M. Chu’s announcement of his plans to direct a new live-action adaptation of the much-beloved animated series Jem, film producer Jason Blum has revealed the movie is going into production in just three weeks. Every news item related to the movie seems to create new reasons to tamper fan optimism about the project—from the exclusion of Jem creator Christy Marx; to the announcement video asking for “fan creativity” in the form of ideas and auditions; to the lack of a female writer; to a follow-up video’s “hey look, here’s a lady who’s working on the movie” vibe. News of this accelerated schedule is just adding fuel to the idea that this effort is less in the vein of guerrilla filmmaking and more in a legacy-tainting, disastrous one.
Granted, having a penis doesn’t automatically disqualify a filmmaker from adapting Jem, but it takes a bit more than waving a doll around to tap into what made Jem such a touchstone. Maybe Chu, Blum, and company can find the Synergy and pull this off. Then again, anyone still smarting over the Josie And The Pussycats movie may have a new object of derision soon.