When “Death Race,” Paul W.S. Anderson’s remake of the 1975 Roger Corman production, “Death Race 2000,” arrives in theaters on August 22, fans of the original film will be pleased to hear a familiar voice behind the mask of the racer known as Frankenstein: David Carradine, who played the same character in the original film…sort of.
“I’ve seen a lot of it, and it’s essentially a cartoon,” said Carradine, in an interview with Bullz-Eye.com. “It’s only vaguely related to ‘Death Race 2000.’ It’s not a remake. It’s not even an adaptation. It’s just a completely different idea, with people who think that there’s a modern viewpoint that’s different somehow.”
Despite these changes, Carradine describes “Death Race” as “a pretty good movie,” though he’s less than certain about how it will do at the box office. ”
“I don’t know how people are going to respond to it,” Carradine admitted. “It doesn’t have the humor or even the humanity that the original had. I think was the point of ‘Death Race 2000’ (was) that it was funny. The other thing was the moralistic aspect of it. Roger Corman said, ‘I intended to make a movie that was mainly action, secondarily it was a moralistic film, and thirdly it would’ve been a comedy. And what I got was comedy, action, moral.’ But he said, ‘You can’t argue with these grosses!'”
“I know you can’t just remake the original just like it was, because today it would be really corny,” acknowledges Carradine, “but my answer to that is, ‘Let’s just not do it.’ But I’m not Universal.”
As for his cameo, Carradine says, “I think they just did that as a nod to the old fans, saying, ‘Well, David Carradine is in this movie!'”
