A few short posts ago, we brought news that Will Smith is in the works of developing a remake of Annie with Columbia/Sony. The idea was to use this film as star vehicle for his daughter Willow Smith. Rapper Jay-Z was also in talks in being involved with the music for the film,having production experience with Willow Smith’s “Whip My Hair”. It seems thatthese speculations have been proven to be real fact as Mr. Smith and company officially announced the remake and Jay-Z’s involvement with the project.

Will Smith’s Overbrook Entertainment and Jay-Z are partnering up for the first time and hope to work together more after this project, with the intent “to develop and produce major motion pictures.”

It seems that Will Smith and family are ready to take over the business. Evryone involved with the Annie remake has already worked on the hit Broadway musical Fela!, Willow Smith and Jay-Z’s label have made arrangements with each other to produce more music for the little lady Smith. With the remake of The Karate Kid for son Jaden Smith, it looks like the Smith’s are ready to bring in their star power.

Willow Smith is talented, and with the arrangement made between Overbrook (The people responsible for the Karate Kid remake) and Jay-Z is sounding even more promising as they all blend together pretty well. Jay-Z having experience with sampling off the original Annie soundtrack with “Hardknock Life” shows that it’s possible to make the music and the theme more original and modern.

News of this production is still very scarce, as it’s still pretty early and was just announced. There is still no word on whether the material will stick with the original story and music or if this combination of talent will be modernizing or revamping the whole story. I do expect there to be a couple of changes to what degree, I am not too sure of. Though as I’ve said before, making a more modern version of Annie wouldn’t hurt the story at all, it may actually gain more attention and dare I say (especially with this group involved) make it a bit better.

Don’t get it wrong, I love and enjoyed the original Broadway musical (music by Charles Strouse and lyrics by Martin Charnin and a book by Thomas Meehan) which led to the John Huston movie. But I’m also looking at the newer generation of film viewers, with Jay-Z, Willow Smith, and Overbrook Productions working on this it sounds like something that will get it right for movie viewers.