The Toy: According to Variety, Sid Ganis' shingle Out of the Blue Entertainment is producing a remake of The Toy for Columbia.

TV scribes Bob Burris and Michael Ware are penning the script, and Ganis will produce.

While the redo will draw from the 1982 Richard Pryor film (which itself was adapted from 1976 French pic "Le Jouet"), the film will also take elements from the script "Jack and Jay," a comedy Burris and Ware wrote a few years ago for Out of the Blue.

Ganis says that when he brought that script to Col execs Matt Tolmach and Shannon Gaulding, Tolmach said: "This is 'The Toy.' I want to do it as 'The Toy.' "

"So we're taking the best parts of 'Jack and Jay' and the best parts of the American and French versions of 'The Toy' to create an updated version," Ganis said.

The new film will take out the racial element of the Pryor pic -- comic played a hired plaything for Jackie Gleason's son -- which drew criticism, says Mandy Safavi, who is overseeing the pic along with Alex Siskin for Out of the Blue.

In the remake, the bratty son of a powerful businessman chooses a mailroom clerk as his "toy" to keep him company on his annual visit to see his father.