# Willard Remake? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [February 16, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399 "2003-02-16T06:26:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 14\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 6:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/1 "2003-02-16T06:26:01Z")
Anyone know anything about this Willard remake I saw a poster for ealier today, and am I the only one who thinks this is a bad idea? ---
**Author:** ![SadTomato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SadTomato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SadTomato)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 6:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/2 "2003-02-16T06:50:32Z")
It may be a bad idea–but it’s a terrific trailer : [Willard Trailer](http://www.apple.com/trailers/newline/willard/) ---
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 6:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/3 "2003-02-16T06:54:13Z")
Whenever I think of Willard, I think of Ben, and whenever I think of Ben I think of Michael Jackson . . . Singing a love song . . . To a RAT! ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/4 "2003-02-16T07:38:36Z")
Well, I’m glad to see Crispin Glover getting some work. ---
**Author:** ![Fibber\_McGee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a6a055/32.png) [@Fibber\_McGee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fibber_McGee)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/5 "2003-02-16T07:42:07Z")
Indeed. And damned if the trailer _isn’t_ terrific! ---
**Author:** ![DMark](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e68b1a/32.png) [@DMark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DMark)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 8:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/6 "2003-02-16T08:41:47Z")
Trivia info: To prepare the rats for the original film, the original trainer used his son, covered him with honey and put him in a bathtub. Then he put in several hundred baby rats and let them lick the honey off of him. He eventually trained the rats to jump on him on cue. I am not sure, as it was many years ago I read this, but I believe there were 200 rats trained for the filming. I also seem to recall that due to the long shoot, he had to train another 200 rats to do the same thing for reshoots. Ernest Borgnine (sp?) was later quoted as saying that despite having rats jump up on him on cue, several times during the filming, he was only nicked by rat teeth a couple of times, and none of the bites were serious. I bet there are a lot of would-be actors out there who might want to have passed on this project. ---
**Author:** ![FisherQueen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/58f4c7/32.png) [@FisherQueen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FisherQueen)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/7 "2003-02-16T12:00:06Z")
It was a very good preview, in the sense that it had me screaming “Arrrgh! Oh, no no no no no. Bleeeerrk!” throughout almost the whole thing. However, it did not succeed it making me watch the movie, because two hours of blerking did not sound appealing. ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/8 "2003-02-16T15:20:05Z")
I caught part of a recent rat movie on the telly last week. It looks to have been made in the past three years or so, but as it was dubbed and on the Spanish channel I couldn’t be sure of much. (My Spanish ranges from “knowing when I am being cursed at” to “nonexistant.”) The title, according to the bug was “Las Ratas” and it was set in a major American city (I could tell because all the actors were gringos). There was one scene where afew hundred CGI rats were attacking the kids in a municipal pool like little furry torpedoes. Anyone know the English title of this film and if it is available on DVD? I tried all variants I could think of on IMDB, but care up dry. Thank you. ---
**Author:** ![Rie](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/a6a055/32.png) [@Rie](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rie)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/9 "2003-02-16T15:20:08Z")
Looks great! I don’t mean to divert from the topic but this reminded me of another remake rumor I heard a while back - Keanu Reeves in “Billy Jack” – anyone know anything about that? ---
**Author:** ![stuyguy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/ec9cab/32.png) [@stuyguy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/stuyguy)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 3:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/10 "2003-02-16T15:40:08Z")
For the record I started 2 Willard threads on the SDMB over the past few years. Basically I asked, Has anyone seen the [original] movie lately? I have NEVER seen it shown anywhere on TV, even during the Haloween season when they haul out the dregs of the horror movie inventory for a week or more. IIRC, no one who responded to my posts had seen it either. There may have been some speculation that it was pulled because of some legal dispute/issue. Is it possible the new producers have kept it out of circulation on purpose? ---
**Author:** ![Mothchunks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/a587f6/32.png) [@Mothchunks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mothchunks)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/11 "2003-02-16T16:37:52Z")
but the scene with the cat in this trailer bothers me. Maybe if they had cast Steve Buscemi as Ben… ---
**Author:** ![SadTomato](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c37758/32.png) [@SadTomato](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SadTomato)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/12 "2003-02-16T17:26:48Z")
Wasn’t the original movie produced by Bing Crosby Productions? ---
**Author:** ![Mockingbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/c68b51/32.png) [@Mockingbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mockingbird)\ **Post date:** [February 16, 2003, 8:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/13 "2003-02-16T20:41:09Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by SadTomato \* > \*\*Wasn’t the original movie produced by Bing Crosby Productions? \*\* Yes, it was. [http://us.imdb.com/Details?0067991](http://us.imdb.com/Details?0067991) Last time I saw this or Ben was on TV about 1977ish or so. ---
**Author:** ![Keith\_Berry](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/22d042/32.png) [@Keith\_Berry](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Keith_Berry)\ **Post date:** [February 17, 2003, 8:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/willard-remake/155399/14 "2003-02-17T08:17:48Z")
I’m wondering if this is going to be a straight remake, or they’ll go back to the source material (the novel Ratman’s Notebooks, which I found at a flea market for 25 cents when I was 15) which is considerably different from the original film. Since they’re using the title “Williard”, I would assume the former.