REMAKING MISERY
Den of Geek has one of the most awful things I've ever seen on the internet posted, shamelessly, out in the open for everyone to stumble across. Cannot they think of the children? Their article is a blatant list of the 75 upcoming Hollywood projects involving remakes and reboots of old material.
Some of the lowlights:
Some of the lowlights:
Akira (live action, by Hughes Brothers)Just because I'm a masochist, I searched around the internet and found some of the upcoming TV shows being considered for or made into movies. The only bright spot in this is that it seems like they've slowed down, mercifully, on that particular trend:
Alien
American Pie*
Arthur (the Dudley Moore drunken rich man movie)
Bourne*
Cliffhanger (one of Stallone's most unfortunate flops)
The Crow (by LXG director)
Endless Love (the woeful Brooke Shields movie)
Fantastic Four, again
Footloose
Highlander
Jurassic Park*
Mr and Mrs Smith
Planet of the Apes, again
Police Academy - rebooting this, really?
Porky's, with Howard Stern?
Short Circuit
Spawn
Spy Kids*
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, again
The Warriors
The ones marked *might end up being prequel/sequels instead of a full reboot.
A-Team
Dallas
Friends
Hawaii 5-0
Johnny Quest
Then there are movies that I wouldn't mind so much being remade or rebooted, although it makes me really nervous for modern guys to work on them. Conan for instance, with Jason Mamoa (pictured at the top, probably best known for his work on Firefly) in the title role might be good. I don't expect it to be better than the original Conan, but it might spark interest in fantasy which always is useful for me. I have to ask, though: Conan was a nordic guy, from the far north. This dude looks like a south pacific islander. Huh?
And who knows, maybe a Phantom Tollbooth remake could be good, although for some reason the original scared the heck out of me when I watched it at around age 7.
I'm really looking forward to a Westworld remake. The original was okay, but like I've said before it suffered from the presence of wimpy Richard Benjamin and a remake could really take advantage of modern effects and technology.
They're working on a Daredevil reboot, which could be good, and could hardly be worse than the original Ben Affleck movie.
Flash Gordon is being remade, and that's something I'd like to see done well but am nervous about (especially after the woeful Scyfy version).
And a restart of the Fletch franchise would be great, those books are lots of fun and translate well to movies.
Then there's the weird. Does anyone remember Drop Dead Fred? The movie tarring Rik Mayall and Phoebe Cates about a girl's childhood imaginary friend who comes to life when she's grown up, making her life hell? Why on earth would you remake this?
The director of Taken, which I loved, is working on Dune, which is pointless. You can't really make a Dune movie, its too big for anything less than aminiseries. Which Sci Fi already did a pretty good job with.
A reboot or sequel for Ghostbusters just makes me really nervous. All the guys involved with it originally are pretty old and the sequel was so bad I just can't imagine another one.
I understand why Hollywood does this. Recognizable, familiar movie content means that its a safer bet: you have a ready made audience who will be interested just in the fact something they know and like is being made. Making movies is a huge risk because of the cost involved, so cutting down that risk as much as you can is just smart business. Yet at the same time insulting or annoying your customers is not very smart business so you have to be careful.
I'm not of the opinion that every movie has to be original, but at the same time, there's so many great stories and ideas out there which have gone unfilmed and untouched, it seems just criminal to ignore them for yet another TV movie or remake. We all know the basic rules for a remake: it has to be a movie that was either poorly done or so dated that it has lost its power or charm. Well Hollywood has pretty much abandoned those rules for one: it can make money.
And who knows, maybe a Phantom Tollbooth remake could be good, although for some reason the original scared the heck out of me when I watched it at around age 7.
I'm really looking forward to a Westworld remake. The original was okay, but like I've said before it suffered from the presence of wimpy Richard Benjamin and a remake could really take advantage of modern effects and technology.
They're working on a Daredevil reboot, which could be good, and could hardly be worse than the original Ben Affleck movie.
Flash Gordon is being remade, and that's something I'd like to see done well but am nervous about (especially after the woeful Scyfy version).
And a restart of the Fletch franchise would be great, those books are lots of fun and translate well to movies.
Then there's the weird. Does anyone remember Drop Dead Fred? The movie tarring Rik Mayall and Phoebe Cates about a girl's childhood imaginary friend who comes to life when she's grown up, making her life hell? Why on earth would you remake this?
The director of Taken, which I loved, is working on Dune, which is pointless. You can't really make a Dune movie, its too big for anything less than aminiseries. Which Sci Fi already did a pretty good job with.
A reboot or sequel for Ghostbusters just makes me really nervous. All the guys involved with it originally are pretty old and the sequel was so bad I just can't imagine another one.
I understand why Hollywood does this. Recognizable, familiar movie content means that its a safer bet: you have a ready made audience who will be interested just in the fact something they know and like is being made. Making movies is a huge risk because of the cost involved, so cutting down that risk as much as you can is just smart business. Yet at the same time insulting or annoying your customers is not very smart business so you have to be careful.
I'm not of the opinion that every movie has to be original, but at the same time, there's so many great stories and ideas out there which have gone unfilmed and untouched, it seems just criminal to ignore them for yet another TV movie or remake. We all know the basic rules for a remake: it has to be a movie that was either poorly done or so dated that it has lost its power or charm. Well Hollywood has pretty much abandoned those rules for one: it can make money.
posted by Christopher Taylor at 10:00 AM
1 Comments:
Phantom Tollbooth would be my top pick of the movies you mentioned. That one could be done very well today.
Another one I'd like to see remade (and there was some talk about it last year) is Remo Williams, based on "The Destroyer" book series (one of my favorites as a kid). The 80's movie focused on Remo's origins, but there is so much good material that could be taken from the books, they would be better off just starting in the middle of a Remo & Chiun adventure and then filling in the background as they go. If done right (and in the 80's, it wasn't), this could evolve into a James Bond type franchise.
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