Kevin Smith is no longer participating on the upcoming TV series remake of ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’…
No one was more excited about a TV series based on the 1984 cult classic film ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’ than director and writer Kevin Smith.
Smith was so enthusiastic about the project that MGM hired him to develop the series and act as show runner for a ‘Buckaroo Banzai’ TV show that had already been picked up by Amazon.
Now just a few months later, Smith has dropped out of the project after MGM filed a lawsuit against the original creators behind ‘The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai’ Earl Mac Rauch and Walter Richter as the two parties fight over the rights to develop the movie into a TV series.
As soon as Smith heard about the lawsuit, he immediately decided to no longer participate in the series because part of his love for ‘Buckaroo Banzai’ came from the people responsible for the original movie and it was his hope that they would even be involved with the show that was under his direction.
“I’m not saying anybody’s wrong in this situation, but what I’m saying, respectfully to all parties involved, I’m out,” Smith revealed on Monday. “I wanted those dudes involved in the show and stuff. So this kind of goes against what we all talked about. Things happen. This didn’t exist when we made the deal and now it does.
“I was caught off guard, I had literally no idea. I went to the internet to look up a “Bed Knobs and Broomsticks” story and found out there was a lawsuit involving “Buckaroo Banzai”.”
According to Smith, scripts had already been produced and the series was moving ahead with hopes of being picked up for a full season on Amazon, but now he’s completely exiting the project despite his continued love for the original source material.
Smith has also been pitching a new TV series based on his 1995 cult classic film “Mallrats” but he says as of now nobody has picked it up. On the flip side, Amazon had already purchased the rights to air the ‘Buckaroo Banzai’ TV series, but he just can’t take part if the original creators are at odds with MGM over the series.
“So it blows cause that’s the closest I’ve come to having my own show so far,” Smith said. “We’ve pitched “Mallrats” a few places, no bites and stuff, that “Buckaroo Banzai” was for real. It sucks to walk away from something for real.”
MGM hasn’t made any comment about Smith’s exit from the project or how they will plan to move forward without his involvement on ‘Buckaroo Banzai’.
As for Smith, he’s kept busy with recent directing gigs on ‘The Flash’ and ‘Supergirl’ while also planning his next film titled ‘Moose Jaws’ as well as continued work to turn ‘Mallrats’ into a TV series.
