Next-Gen Xbox One Unveiled With Content Including … 
UPDATE: Apple CEO Challenged For Moving “Crown … 
CAA Signs ‘Robocop’ Joel Kinnaman 
Cannes: Fleming Q&A With Steven Soderbergh: … 
ESPN Layoffs Could Reach 400 As Part Of Latest Disney Cuts 
UPDATE: Broadcast Nets Expand Nightly News For Tornado … 
Cannes: Weinstein Co Acquires Keanu-Reese Sci-Fi Pic … 
RATINGS RAT RACE: ‘Dancing With The Stars’ Up … 
Hot Trailer: ‘The Wolverine’ 
Ric Robertson Taking Paid Summer Hiatus From Movie Academy … 
‘The Big C’ Finale Airs On Showtime Tonight 
Obama Scandals Bring MSNBC 7-Year Low While Fox News Rises 
Season Finale Of CBS’ ‘Mike & Molly’ … 
Ang Lee Departs FX Pilot ‘Tyrant’ 
DreamWorks Eyes January For ‘Glimmer’ And Dylan … 
Warner Bros TV & ‘Smallville’ Co-Creators … 
How Many Times Does Seth MacFarlane Have To Say No To The … 
UPFRONTS 2013: TV Spinoffs’ Almost Perfect Year 
OSCARS: Animated Feature Rule Change 
Cannes: Relativity Sets ‘Hunger Games’ Liam … 
Cannes: Park Chan-wook’s ‘Sympathy For Mr. … 
EXCLUSIVE: After a three-year battle waged to determine ownership of sequel and separated rights on the CBS sitcom Hogan’s Heroes, creators Albert S. Ruddy and the late Bernard Fein have been granted all rights. Ruddy will work with Fein’s estate to develop a feature film ensemble comedy using the show’s clever WWII German POW camp premise. The duo was granted rights that include movies, publication, merchandising, radio and live rights, as well as TV sequel rights. The judgment was made by arbitrator Joel M. Grossman on March 1. The creators went up against Bing Crosby Productions, which produced the show, and whose rights are now owned by Mark Cuban. Ruddy and Fein were represented by Greenburg & Traurig’s Vince Chieffo and Alan Schwartz, and WGA’s Heather Pearson and Anthony R. Segall.
Hogan’s Heroeswas a top-rated show on CBS that spanned 168 episodes that ran from 1965-1971, starring Bob Crane as Col. Robert Hogan, Werner Klemperer as Col. Wilhelm Klink, Richard Dawson as Cpl. Peter Newkirk and John Banner as Sgt. Hans Schultz. Ruddy and Fein created the show and wrote and developed the pilot.
Ruddy, best known for producing The Godfather and Million Dollar Baby, just wrapped the David Ayer-directed Ten, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.
The issue of ownership of rights has been a veritable tinderbox of litigation for the past 10 years with most writers unsure of whether they can claim such rights. I wouldn’t be surprised if this development sends more show creators to their union to see what is possible.
Loading ...
I’m really, earnestly trying to imagine a Hogan’s Heroes-inspired movie that could work. I can’t.
My sentiments, exactly.
Unless, like the new “Star Trek” franchise, they make the CW version with “… to look 20″ actors, which would be a really bad idea.
In real life, most POWs were probably in their 20s.
They’ll make it a vehicle for Schwarzenegger.
Oh, hes GOT to play Schultz!
Yeah, depicting Nazis with any kind of color or personality isn’t going to fly in this day and age. Because, you know, it was a comedy. Plus, the world was very recently covered in Inglorious Basterds, so I’m not sure how any directors/actors would want to return to that subject right now.
Instantly see the Oceans Eleven crew, could be wonderful.
It was called STALAG 17, and it came first.
The whole premise of Hogan’s Heroes was that the Nazis were incompetent and foolish. If it is played the same way it will still be funny.
Robert Downey Jr – Hogan
Sacha Baron Cohen/Rainn Wilson – Klink
nuff said.
Time to do a kickstarter!
*lol*
Good for you Al Ruddy. Haven’t seen you in years but I actually sold Hogan’s in syndication for many years and it was always- always an effortless sell.
Bernard Fein died in 1980.
why don’t they plot an original idea?
Greg Kinner as Hogan or GTFO.
*Kinnear*
DUMB idea. Kinnear didn’t get it right at all, didn’t look the part at all.
Russell Crowe as Hogan. It fits, similar appearance and a movie vehicle to let you see crowe’s comedy acting chops.
Agreed.
Kinnear played Bob Crane in “Autofocus.” How meta
Anyone who uses GTFO: GTFO LOL
This film is being produced by two Geriatrics that are older than Merchant and Ivory!, Kudos to them for staying in the game for so long…..
Well Ismail has been dead for 8 years but point taken.
Take half the cast from 21 Jump Street and half the cast from Inglorious Bastards… and I think it could be pretty damn funny.
I agree that it’s hard to imagine a modern version of this show, but then again, they somehow managed to get it on the air in 1965, at a time when most World War II veterans (not to mention holocaust survivors) were still alive. Sometimes the best way to deal with a terrible subject is to laugh at it. My grandfather fought in Europe and he loved Hogan’s Heroes.
But the world is a different place now. Everyone is so sensitive, and it’s a whole lot easier to make a stink than it was in 1965.
Unless they take it further. Give the tone of a movie like Anchorman, where you go even beyond satire and right into surreality, and it’s possible they can get away with it.
Or just get Johnny Depp. Apparently that makes it all OK.
You got that right! I say like it or lump it . Look what’s on now garbage. Everything has to have sex in it. Hogans Herows was funny clever and clean. They were able to use the same actors playing different parts. I don’t see it working out. Everyone is gone. Stupid and foolish C B S should have kept the show on another 3 or 4 years.
After I graduated college, I got a job with JVC and drove an Audi.
My father wondered just WHO won the war.
i’ve got to say that Al Ruddy has had a prolific career. the guy’s done everything. and, he’s very personable.
Indeed a prolific artist.. I worked with him in 1971 on the movie “Making It” and later in 1972 on “The Godfather”.
Only fond memories of those days.
HH was one of the best shows of the 60′s it was consistently funny and inventive and it should have been turned into a movie as soon as the show ended the same way Universal did those McHale’s Navy movies in 1965 and 1966. They could have done an awesome feature film of HH in 1971.
Imagine that original pitch meeting. Suit sitting at his desk with a writer on the other side saying “it’s a tv show set in a Nazi concentration camp, and here’s the hook – are ya ready – it’s a COMEDY!”
That couldn’t have been the original pitch. It was set in a prisoner-of-war camp. While POW camps weren’t exactly 5-star resorts, they were hardly concentration camps.
Love the original series, but wondering how they bring it forward to make it work now. Do they go Blazing Saddles or more M*A*S*H* the movie, making it more dramedy?
They go Frat-Pack.
Loooove Al Ruddy but between this news and the remake on GOOD TIMES it
feels so sad and derivative!! Where are the new original creatives!??!?
Ditto!
A venerable title and classic TV show. But as a movie or sequel (or maybe prequel)? It seems to have the “success” of “The A-Team” movie written all over it..
I want to be positive about this, but am also skeptical. Prove us wrong, Albert!
No one under the age of 40 has ever seen an episode of Hogan’s Heroes. Plus, it is not a beloved show. I’d be surprised if they could get financing for this “movie”.
Wrong on both counts. It is still seen on TV today, DVDs of all seasons are available and there are many fans of all ages. Do some research.
Wrong. I’m 21 years old, and I own the complete series on DVD.
I’m 18 and I also own the complete HH series on DVD. I’ve been watching since the first season was released in 2005(6?)on DVD when I was only 11 and my mother(who’s 49)bought it and introduced it to me. It’s a great show and plenty of young people know about it so there.
I’m 16 and I LOVE the show ._. I got my friends to watch it and love it…
How about David O. Russell for this? While he doesn’t seem like the type adapt a sitcom for the multiplex, he has proven time and again that he knows how to pull real humor out of uncomfortable situations (war, addiction, mental illness, etc). The more uptight commenters noted that they’re squeamish at the idea of comical Nazis. With a good script, the director of THREE KINGS could face the icky factor head-on.
Jonah Hill as Sgt. Schultz. It has to happen.
Update and set it in Gitmo. Nobody laughing? Even the Brits have now done WWII comedy to death (Anybody else here seen ”Allo, ‘Allo’?) Yeah, I think prison camp comedy has had its day.
‘Allo ‘Allo!? I love that show
Auto Focus 2
Suppose they made the movie as an action movie? Stalag 13 prisoners have dug a tunnel and are in the midst of an escape when an OSS intelligence agent (female of course) on the run stumbles onto them and enlists their help to blow up a Nazi atomic research lab. At the end of the successful raid they return to the camp for their next mission.
They know NOOOTHING!
HOOOGAANNN!
Many actors have sniffed around this project longer than the lawsuit. It’ll be interesting if any come on board.
Make the camp unimportant in the eyes of the German high command. The Allied prisoners would be considered run-of-the-mill low-priority types, so there’s no special attention paid to them. Have all the German camp officers be a bunch of reluctant, nominal conscripts. Make sure Klink is still a dolt. Have all of the Germans terrified of the real Nazis (e.g., the Gen. Burkholder types or the Gestapo guys should be fanatical and menacing, to off-set the nominal camp officers). It could work.
Well, Mel Brooks made it work in a modern “PC” world with The Producers and dancing Nazi’s, so if handled right… Best of luck to him.
I think The Producers only worked b/c it was based on his own project from, what, ’71? And it was Mel Brooks.