The latest 80s project getting the reboot treatment is a surprising one. Urban Cowboy, the 1980 James Bridges film that starred John Travolta and Debra Winger, is getting a 21st century TV revival at Paramount+.
The film is sort of a modern western that revolves around the love-hate relationship between Buford “Bud” Davis and Sissy, with Bud desperate to prove his manhood in a mechanical bull riding competition at the local tavern. At the time, the film was praised for capturing the late 1970s/early 1980s popularity of country music.
Here’s the problem though – the film is very bad. Bud and Sissy’s relationship is extremely toxic and abusive, with Bud frequently violent towards Sissy yet still depicted as the protagonist. When she leaves him for someone else – who is somehow also obsessed with mechanical bulls – he’s also violent towards her.
So what should be a film about a woman trapped in a world where her only romantic options are violent men turns into a battle to reclaim masculinity, as Bud and his rival seek to win the bull riding contest and essentially win Sissy’s heart. Bud wins, ends up with Sissy, and they ride off into the sunset where we can expect many domestic violence calls from neighbours.
Why Paramount would choose this film to reboot is extremely surprising – it’s not even particularly well known. If they wanted a modern western show in the hope of matching the success of Yellowstone, why not remake a more traditional western?
Obviously the hope will be that this new version alters the characters and either changes the relationship or at least comments on the violence. But all these changes will mean it won’t even be Urban Cowboy, so why remake that at all? Who was begging for a remake of this?
The series will see James Ponsoldt directing, who previously made the incredible David Foster Wallace biopic The End Of The Tour and excellent teen romance The Spectacular Now, but whose last film was the disastrous 2017 thriller The Circle.
He’s since directed a number of episodes of Sorry For Your Loss, which like Urban Cowboy, most probably haven’t heard of because it was a show on Facebook Watch. His next film in development is coming of age drama Summering, which revolves around four friends who decide to make the most of the last weekend of summer before starting middle school.
It will be fascinating to see how Urban Cowboy comes together. The film is very of its time in both setting and characters, and doesn’t seem like it would fit today’s TV landscape at all. Hopefully Ponsoldt has an interesting angle on the material, but this doesn’t seem like a remake that will have hordes of fans rejoicing at the news.
#Peace.Love.UrbanCowboy
