An American Werewolf returns to London

A brief item in Variety is more than sufficient to chill the blood of fans of John Landis's An American Werewolf in London, since it confirms that Weinstein Company tentacle Dimension Films is developing a remake/reinvention/reimagining/rehash (select according to taste) of the hairy 1981 movie. Details are thin on the ground …

[SuperTim]

Booo.....

I like the original, even if it was a bit rubbish. The new one will try too hard and not be mildy amusing. Besides, it wont have everyones favourite dirty girl next door....Jenny Agutter.

[SynnerCal]

Holywood: Dumb and Dumber

Remaking AWiL? I've only got one comment

Owwwwwww Noooooooooooooooooooooooo

(that works if you do it as a howl... ;) )

[Jay 2]

Note to Hollywood

Please have some original ideas! I'm sure there are loads of books they can get some from.

[The Metal Cod]

You Owe Me 1 Keyboard Sir!

"Rumours that the Fursts and Dimension Films are working up a script for Remakers, in which a CGI-resurrected Vincent Price as Prince Prospero is faced by a terrifying plague which has inexplicably transformed every Hollywood movie into a rehash, are unconfirmed."

I tried not to laugh but failed. Tea all over the keyboard and papers behind it. Worst thing is my mind is trying to picture this. I think you've broken my mind Lester!

[joe90]

Nooooo!!!

What next? A remake of John Carpenters: The Thing?

[Yes - I know this was a remake!]

[Mr Larrington]

Grrr!

Kill them. With fire.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's all in the Stars

I don't mind the remake, but where are they going to get a co-star who is as sophisticated and sexy, simultaneously, as Jenny Agutter?

(I'm probably showing my age here).

[Andy 97]

NO

Oh dear,

maybe if people invested money in writers instead of effects this kind of thing wouldn't happen.

What a shame they feel the need to do this.

[Stef 4]

Great!!!!

Now we can have an endless stream of posts from people who think that a remake somehow erases all copies of the original from history, meaning no one can ever see the original ever again. Then of course the film makers come around to every house in the world, forcing people at gunpoint to go and see the film. That is how it works, surely?

With recent events, I'm looking forward to Thriller and Moonwalker remakes soon.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: Booo.....

The original was terrific - brilliant pastiche of old Brit comedy in places and groundbreaking effects. A remake will blow. But they are clearly desperate for anything that can be reheated.

But then, in some ways it's interesting to see new takes on old stories, even if it's not that enriching - I mean, the latest Jack Black film is an original idea, doesn't mean it's any good.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why?

Just, why?

[Stephen 5]

Didn't they already do this?

American Warewolf in Paris... A rehash that flopped.

Be original Hollywood, we don't need to update every old film out there with a new version with added CGI.

[Justabloke 1]

FFS!

Ferkin' tossers, have an original idea you dipshits.

That is all.

[Lionel Baden]

@Mr Larrington

Woudlnt that be

KILL THEM With silver bullets

[eezatehgeeza]

Something to comfort all..

A little aside:

My good friend told me about the Dune remake travesty and before I collapsed sobbing he sent me a little mantra I wish to share with you all that saved me going emo on my life:

I must not watch remakes

remakes are the mind killer

remakes are the little-death that brings total obliteration

I will face these imposters

I will permit them to run in cinemas and for me to ignore them

and when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see it's path

where the duplicate has gone there will be nothing

only the original will remain

Thank-you with all of my heart Gumph.

[Neil Barnes]

Jenny Agutter.

That's all.

[Chris Collins]

Jesus Christ!

Given how "good" Werewolf in Paris was, I don't think this will work. It'll be set in Nebraska or somewhere with cookie-cutter Yank droids and with the usual lack of irony they will remove all of the humour and make it some deadly serious thing. Thus it will both suck and blow.

[Arnie]

Now theres a film that scared me shitless

Ha, My uncle ran a pirate video club in. wait for it....... Brixton prison back in the early 80's. I must have been ten when I was invited to watch the original. I only lasted untill jack comes back the first time. I don't think I managed to watch it all the way through untill I was about 15. I know what a wuss. Don;t remake this classic.

[SuperTim]

@ Sarah Bee

Absolutely. Presumably the new one will be a CGI-fest with massive hollywood stars trying to out-oscar each other.

Who are they going to get for the Slaughtered Lamb Scenes? It can now only be Pete Postlethwaite.... He is the only northerner the americans would believe, and half of them think he is Kayser Sozay.

No it will be rubbish...i have decided.

Nobody can out-John- Landis John Landis.

[Rasczak]

See you next Wednesday

American Werewolf is my favourite film ever, with my favourite joke ever (Remember the Alamo), I couldn't say it was the best film ever, but definitely my favourite.

You just couldn't get the same feel from a remake of this, and if they do a dance/techo/(c)rap cover of Blue Moon for the soundtrack, well just no.

Mind you, it could be funny to see if they congratulate anyone famous on their wedding in the credits :-p

[disgruntled yank]

rehash

Someone in The Washington Post a few years back remarked that the true subject of most movies then made was the collective subconscious of the Baby Boomers--he was referring to one of those movies made of a not very good 1960s sitcom.

Forbidding new takes on old stories would eliminate much of Shakespeare, wouldn't it? But the movie industry seems no more apt than the rest of the world to turn up talents of that quality.

[Mark Lockwood]

Slaughtered Lamb

Guaranteed this will be moved to become a trendy wine bar fill of bowler hatted blokes in Barnsley.

Never mind Jenny Agutter, where will they get a car that can go from London to the Moors faster than the original MG?

Remember the Alamo...

[JimC]

@Sarah B

And don't forget the marvellous choice of music:-)

[Ian Ferguson]

Bah

I bet it goes along the lines of the remake of The Italian Job.

The film will be set in New York (no reference to London except in the title) and the werewolf will live happily ever after.

Couldn't they remake An American Werewolf in Paris instead? At least they couldn't make THAT one worse.

[Anonymous Coward]

So many remakes

Didn't they remake it in a women's prison recently? It can't get worse than that.

[John G Imrie]

Who's going to play

Brian Glover's part. and as its Hollywood are they going to rename the Slaughtered Lamb to the Slug and Lettuce.

[Efros]

Noooooooooooo

Besides who will take Agutter's role and get their kit off with such abandon as Jenny always did?

Not Paris, she'd get her kit off alright but she couldn't act her way out of a wet paper bag.

[Sarah Bee]

Re: @Sarah B

Hell yes. The ridiculously incongruous version of Blue Moon at the end still knocks me on my arse.

Thinking about the London-to-Yorkshire implausibility - I suspect it might have been a deliberate quip on how tiny Americans think the UK is. Clever snarky Landis. Either that or it was just expedient to the plot and it didn't really matter what the reality was - or they cocked it up. But I'd like to think it was the first.

[Adam T]

Daybreakers?

Yeah and Daybreakers doesn't sound like a rehash under a different name either. *cough*legend*cough.

[MinionZero]

The Hollywood business model...

I don't know what is more sickening. The idea they will remake it or the idea they most likely will earn money from a rehash and so consider it a success, when all they are really doing is cashing in on it and fooling people into seeking it. (See Day The Earth Stood Still 2008 for details of how to totally screw up a film yet make over $150M dollars from the hype). Bit like the marketing methodology used in the video games industry for the game "Rise Of The Robots", which was so bad its gone down in history as an example of a hype sold product. It seems scamming people is the new Hollywood business model. Oh hold on, that's the old business model used by some films, just taken to news levels of exploitation.

"where are they going to get a co-star who is as sophisticated and sexy, simultaneously, as Jenny Agutter"

Ah yes :) ... Jenny Agutter ... My vote is for Jennifer Love Hewitt. She also has it all. :)

Terminator icon, because the remake most likely will have a disney song singing, Album selling, killer robot Vampire Werewolf from the planet Cola sponsored by guess which companies.

[Alien8n]

@ Sarah B

No, they do that all the time.

Look at Costner's Robin Hood, they land at Dover and in 1 day manage to walk from the south coast up to Hadrian's Wall, through a Scots Pine forest and finally getting to Sherwood (which apparently isn't even full of Oak trees).

[OrsonX]

"stay off the moors lads..."

Jenny = best nurse EVER!

oh yes!

[Anonymous Coward]

Damn their eye's!!!

Why do they have to keep on doing this? If it's not remakes and re-hashes it's the bending of history till it breaks. BASTARDS!!!

Maybe this is Hollywoods way of preventing another writers strike. When the day comes that they threaten to walk out again the studios can turn around and say "Well, you haven't written anything original in ages so why should we pay you more?"

I look forward with immeasurable dread to the next round of dire outpourings from LA-LA-Land

[Alien8n]

@ Adam T

I Am Legend was also a remake. Well, to be honest it was a remake of a remake (the seminal Omega Man with Charlton Heston).

However, what stands I Am Legend out is that it was a remake that actually went back to the original novel for most of it's ideas and then updated the story from that.

The Day The Earth Stood Still was actually okay in some senses, but went way overboard with it's climate change agenda. It's almost like they hired Al Gore as executive producer. Lets face it, the premise of the original story still holds true, we're still more likely to destroy the world with Nukes than coal.

Hmmm, we need a vampire alien icon...

[Anonymous Coward]

@Bending of history until it breaks

If anyone ever makes a film version of Diana: Warrior Princess I will be buying tickets.

(google it)

[Bryce Prewitt]

NOOOOOOOOO...

The Thing, The Long Good Friday, American Werewolf in London... IS NOTHING SACRED TO THOSE HOLLYWOOD GRASSFUCKERS?

I say we take off and nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure.

[WonkoTheSane]

@ Jay 2 / Justabloke 1 / MinionZero / AC 13:22

The studios are ALL run by accountants now, not the movie moguls of old.

Their thinking goes something like this:-

Imagination = new

New = unproven

Unproven != profit?

Therefore imagination != profit?

Therefore imagination = bad!

[Stevie]

Bah!

A future plague that turns people into vampires?

I can't see how such a fresh plot based on such a novel, first-time on the screen idea could possibly fail.

Azathoth, the only thing worse than a film of a video game is a film made to move directly *to* video game. These days everything has to have effing vampires and explosions, and a storyline that *isn't* action-adventure can only get funded once in a blue moon. It's like looking for a decent meal in a mall's food court.

For every "Righteous Kill" there are twenty-odd "Tomb Raider"s. We've bred a generation of zero-attention span pixel junkies and now they have the vote. We don't need no future plgues to wipe out civilization. We infected ourselves with the ultimate civ-buster back in the 80s. Nothing you need a microscope to see is as scary as that.

Crap.

[James O'Shea]

It could be worse

They want to remake The Dambusters and Zulu, too.

If they do, you'll find that the RAF had to import some brave American lads in B-17s to bust those dams, and the name of a certain dog will be stricken from history.

And there's really no telling _what_ they'll do to _Zulu_, except that it'll offend the entire populations of Natal and Wales.

[Captain DaFt]

Meh...

They make remakes all the time, it's what Movie Studios do. After all, why risk doing something new when you can rehash what works with endless sequels, remakes, and "re-visualizations" over and over and over?

I'm still waiting for the remake of the remake to end all remakes - The Last Remake of Beau Geste ( http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076297/ )

[Nameless Faceless Computer User]

Great idea!

This could turn out as well as the remake of the The Shining. Oh wait, that sucked!

[Bod]

Head + Wall. Bash repeatedly

I'm getting fed up of having to reply to these remake articles shouting out "nooooo!!!" and the like. Not sure whether to just give up in despair and never go to the cinema again, or to take it up a notch, jump on a plane and give Hollywood producers a good kicking until they can actually think of something original for once.

Besides, even if they got a stunner to replace nude Jenny, it just won't be the same.

Re: "Nobody can out-John- Landis John Landis."

While true, Landis can follow up with crap sequels (Blues Brothers 2000 for example!).

[wolfmeister]

I used to be a werewolf but i'm not one noooooooooooooooooow!!

heh, the best bit in AWIL is the brief porno cinema on-screen skit, a total classic. and also the Naughty Nina SUN 'revelations' advert

and the brian glover 'Chucks out the mexican' plane joke

lol - i remember how scary the deserted tube was late at night after seeing that film, gulp!

it's not that remakes are a bad idea per-se - it's just that they always make them for retarded american teenagers iq levels... and dont even get me started about the current out of control penchant for 'wobbly' camera work.