‘Ishtar,’ the Remake

Faced with a film-class assignment to restage and shoot scenes from an already-filmed screenplay, one USC grad student has chosen . . . “Ishtar.”

The big-budget 1987 Columbia Pictures comedy was a monumental critical and commercial bomb, despite the presence of Dustin Hoffman, Warren Beatty and writer-director Elaine May.

But budding director Larry Travis remains undaunted. His reasoning: “The first half hour of that movie was absolutely hilarious--some of the funniest comedy I’ve ever seen. Then it does start to bog down in places. . . .”

While his classmates re-interpret scenes on video from more critically successful films, such as “To Have and Have Not” (1944) and “Something Wild” (1986), Travis will re-create three sequences, totaling about 15 minutes, culled from the first half hour of “Ishtar.”

Hoping to shoot soon, Travis feels the challenge is finding actors who can handle the delicate balancing act demanded by the two lead characters--a pair of singer-comedians who take their unsuccessful act to Morocco, stumbling into espionage shenanigans.

“They think they’re funny,” Travis explains, “but they’re not funny--and that’s funny.”