The revitalized MGM has finally set its first new production since it vowed to turn its life around, and while it’s billed as an original idea, it certainly doesn’t stray far from that factory-pressed slate of proposed remakes the studio was kicking around earlier. Titled The Machine, it's both produced by and stars Vin “Man Of Steel” Diesel as a Pentagon-created “ultimate weapon” who ends up befriending a young kid and protecting his family. So really, it’s like a live-action The Iron Giant, complete with Diesel reprising his role as the robot—and indeed, its producers are already openly comparing it to that movie. Similarly, it finds him once more playing a government-trained badass putting his elite skills to work as a suburban babysitter, just like he did in The Pacifier—and in fact, The Machine is also being written by that film’s Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant. And we probably don't have to tell you that it’s being pitched as a “franchise.” Considering all the rigidly predictable, interlocking gears at work here, suddenly The Machine seems like a pretty apt title.
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