'Red Dawn' remake poised for FilmDistrict (24F, VAR, /F, PL)

By Nancy Tartaglione-Moore

A new "Red Dawn" is to see daylight in the US courtesy of FilmDistrict, 24Frames reported Monday. The controversial remake of the Reagan-era pic has gone through some morphing on its way to theaters with its villains now digitally modified from Chinese to North Korean.

MGM produced the film in 2009 but it languished during the studio's financial restructuring and FilmDistrict is said to now be finalizing a deal to take it on board.

In the original 1984 film, the invading forces were Russian. For the remake, they were updated to Chinese but fears of offending the Chinese government, says 24F, led to the tweaks.

24F:

...the movie's producers last winter used digital technology and creative editing to change most of the invaders to North Koreans. (Staunchly communist North Korea is economically isolated and not a market for any American products.) Still, it took most of the year to find a distributor willing to take the movie on.

The original starred C Thomas Howell, Lea Thompson, Charlie Sheen and a pre-"Dirty Dancing" Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey.

This "Red Dawn" stars Chris Hemsworth, Adrianne Palicki, Josh Hutcherson, Josh Peck, Isabel Lucas, Jeffrey Dean Morgan and Connor Cruise and was directed by Dan Bradley.

The Playlist notes:

...if there is one benefit to the film's delay, it's that the profile of its star Chris Hemsworth has been raised considerably thanks to "Thor" and it's likely to be a bigger hit now than it would have been a year ago. Also helping things out? Josh Hutcherson will also see his popularity boost thanks to "The Hunger Games" next spring, so suddenly, this '80s remake with some unknown leads is now a movie led by two franchise stars.

It will likely hit theaters during the fall of 2012.