MGM, who have more aggressive with remaking movies from their back catalogue of 80’s titles than most studio’s have put in motion a musical remake of the 1982 high school comedy flick Valley Girl which starred Nicolas Cage in his first major movie role.

It was Martha Coolidge’s debut as a film-maker, at a time when women were even less making movies than they are today.

Valley Girl was born out of a satire hit single released by Frank Zappa which featured his own 14 year old daughter Moon Zappa gushing out the San Fernando Valley/early 80’s hip lingo. Think Clueless, if it were a music record and didn’t bridge the gap between serious and piss-take.

MGM decided to capitalise on the single back in the day by making a movie with the same title and pop tunes of the time (it wasn’t a musical, but had a large 80’s soundtrack), with an update of Shakespeare’s classic Romeo & Juliet as the narrative. The star crossed lovers this time were a self important blonde (Deborah Foreman) and a punk kid (Nicolas Cage).

The movie was a big hit, earning $17 million at the box office for a flick that was made on a poultry $350,000 budget.

Now in the world where Hairspray earns $200 million worldwide and a film with hip lingo can win all the critical acclaim (Juno), Valley Girl is seen as a potential big money maker.

Let’s hope when this drivel gets made, it will be released on the same weekend as something like The Dark Knight (as was the fate of Mamma Mia) so we barely blink an eyelid as it quietly infects our precious cinema screens.

source - the hollywood reporter