Brett Ratner Backing 'Flamingo Kid' Remake At Disney

EXCLUSIVE: Walt Disney Pictures has set up a remake of the 1984 film The Flamingo Kid, and it will be produced by Brett Ratner’s Rat Entertainment and Michael Phillips’ Lighthouse Productions. Nzingha Stewart, who has directed videos by Jay-Z and 50 Cent and whose film credits include For Colored Girls, has been set to write the script. Ratner, Phillips and Juliana Maio will produce; Rat Entertainment’s John Cheng is exec producer.

Directed by Garry Marshall, the original is one I remember fondly, with Matt Dillon playing a high school grad who gets a job at the Flamingo Club and finds himself mentored by the club’s owner. He soon disdains his own blue collar origins for the beach club where the rich and privileged come to play, but it all comes at a high price and the kid smartens up.

Heard of Ratner, but I haven’t heard Phillips’ name that much since he produced Taxi Driver, The Sting and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind with his late ex-wife, Julia Phillips. Well, he produced the original The Flamingo Kid. Stewart is repped by WME and manager Neda Niroumand.