Cheesy Riders

With Wild Hogs due out today on DVD, a bit of related info.

Right around the time Wild Hogs hit theaters to big bucks, Disney greenlit Old Dogs. It's not related, but reteaming Travolta with director Walt Becker for a similarly named flick about middle-aged antics, it's also not surprising that it pops up in the same discussions.

On the sequel side, Wild Hogs 2 is in the works as well. John Travolta has been hemming and hawing over it in interviews, so we'll see how the casting works out. Expect Travolta to falter, the studio to realize William H. Macy, Martin Lawrence, and Tim Allen might drop out if they see Travolta gone, and offer them all a sizeable sum. I'm assuming none of them died in the end of the first one?

Wild Hogs was at the center of a Hollywood scuffle early this summer. After the unsurprisingly panned Norbit and Ghost Rider made good dough, Wild Hogs repeated the trick, causing a minor imbroglio, with critics on one side and studio execs and directors on the other. For instance, an interview Brian Robbins (director of Norbit, producer of Wild Hogs, probably watched Ghost Rider) gave to the Hollywood Reporter, giving up on making movies for hard-to-please critics and defending the intelligence and taste of the American public, who flocked to all three flicks. Similarly, in a widely circulated editorial, Variety head honcho Peter Bart politely suggested that critics "should consider a sabbatical until September" and leave populist fare alone. By God, if Peter Bart doesn't think I should see Wild Hogs, I won't see Wild Hogs!