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School for Scoundrel's headmaster
February 11, 2007

With Road Trip (2000), Old School (2003) and Starsky and Hutch (2006), filmmaker Todd Phillips has established himself as one of most successful comedy directors of the day. For his latest film,

Phillips decided to direct his very first remake—a new version of the 1960 Ealing Studio comedy School for Scoundrels or How to Win Without Actually Cheating! Phillips’ take on the classic, School for Scoundrels, was released theatrically last fall to the tune of $18 million at the box office. It arrives on DVD from The Weinstein Company on Feb. 13.

Britain’s venerable Ealing Studios best known for its classic comedies of the late Forties up through the early Sixties, so it’s not surprising that the original School is a product very much of its time.

“Some of the Ealing comedies hold up and some just don’t,” Phillips told us last week. “Our School for Scoundrels is somewhere in between

The DVD of the film is available in its rated version and an “Unrated Ballbuster Edition” that comes with a director’s commentary, deleted scenes and outtakes.

“[School] didn’t do to well at the box-office, but we’ve got a ‘never give up’ attitude. And a lot of that went into the DVD.”

His first-ever remake behind him, Phillips is now at working on the screenplay of what will be his first sequel—Old School Dos, a follow-up to you-know-what. The film is still in the development phase and Phillips is approaching the project carefully.

“There’re a lot of factors that go into making a sequel. You’re so close to the original film and the character and the actors who bring them to life,” he said. "It’s like you’re having a love affair with them and you don’t want to fuck it up”

Posted by Laurence Lerman on February 11, 2007 | Comments (0)