odfo
sigh. That is all.
Hollywood to totally recall Total Recall
Columbia Pictures is in "final negotiations" with producer Neal H Moritz to develop a "contemporary version" of 1990 Arnold Schwarzenegger sci-fi romp Total Recall, the Hollywood Reporter, er, reports. Moritz - whose production credits include I Am Legend and Prison Break - expressed the hope that "advancements in technology …
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Friday 27th February 2009 12:06 GMT Matt Bryant
Lack of new ideas?
What tech advancements? The original had all the required effects just fine, thanks. Maybe it's a five-hour-long Bollywood coproduction with singing and dancing digital aliens. Hollywood needs to produce new stuff, not continually rehash the old, otherwise the decline in cinema ticket sales will just continue.
PS: And I can't think of any current Hollywood actress that could get even close to Sharon Stone as she was then! Right off the top of the phwoar-scale!!!
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Friday 27th February 2009 12:06 GMT Anonymous Coward
Keanu Reeves for the Arnie role!
He can bring the same expressive range and depth of emotion to this that he brought to the remake of The Day The Earth Stood Still.
These people are idiots if they think that Total Recall would in any way be improved by modern special effects. Apparently they have forgotten that movie making is about plot and character, and not about a more realistic depiction of Arnold Schwarzenegger hiding inside the fat lady. You would have thought that the comparison between the first Star Wars trilogy and the second one would have cured people of the idea that better special effects == better movie...
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT Alistair
Demure, athletic, voluptuous ... be honest?
Why oh why oh why?
There are several thousand other great PKD stories they could raid. How about The Days of Perky Pat? Quite prescient I should say. Now there's a role for LiLo. There was a very good one about toys I seem to remember. And all those god-in-my-head ones ..?
Keanu is ineligible because he's already played a PKD main character in 'Scanner Darkly.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT David Hicks
So they murdered I am Legend
And now they want to re-abuse one of Dick's stories?
I have come to dread sci-fi movies these days. I *love* sci-fi books. But so many times they take the book, borrow a theme and then totally miss the point of the story to the extent that they're effectively pissing on the authors ideas.
Take "I Robot" for instance. Fscking travesty. They took a cerebral exploration of the ramifications of seemingly simple laws for robotic behaviour and turned it into a noisy, Will Smith laden advertisement for Pepsi, Converse trainers and Audi. Asimov must have spun in his grave.
TR was a cheap enough rip-off of the book, lets not cheapen it further, please.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Advancements
The original was pretty good for technology, as mentioned. Can't beat some of the modelling present in the film, especially the exterior views of Mars. The only weakness in the original watching it now is the use of CRT displays on the tube, etc... a Minority Report-style reworking of display tech would be pretty good but hardly worth a big budget remake.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT Toastan Buttar
Frank Zappa had it right.
In The Real Frank Zappa Book he said
"When you compute the length of time between The Event and The Nostalgia For The Event, the span seems to be about a year less in each cycle. Eventually within the next quarter of a century, the nostalgia cycles will be so close together that people will not be able to take a step without being nostalgic for the one they just took. At that point, everything stops. Death by Nostalgia."
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
Sack the suites
So in essence a bunch of people in suites with no ideas are wasting a lot of money? Like Star Trek MMV1 Nemesis, where a genetically enhanced human (Kahn/Shinzon) comes back and takes revenge on the captain (Picard/Kirk) with an amazing weapon that could kill everything (Genesis Ray/Super blaster energy thingy with added cloak)?
i.e. they had a meeting, the men without ideas in suites decided to remake Star Trek 2, Wrath of Kahn because that sold well. Slap a bit of CGI on it and it'll be fine....
Does that ever work?
Isn't it time for Die Hard 5? or Raiders of the Lost Ark 5? 6? Goonies 4? Bond 25?
How about something totally wacky, like a Romantic comedy staring Julia Roberts and someone.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:07 GMT Paul Murphy
Ringworld
If you want to do an original story with CGI effects then look no further than the Ringworld, or in fact any of the Larry Niven books (Gift from Earth, Protector, Long arm of Gil Hamilton etc etc.) would be a good start, let alone so many other authors.
Just make sure you do it properly, maybe as a 4-parter or something.
There are SO many stories out there, why oh why do they insist on re-doing the past.
ttfn
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT jai
actually i like this idea
i'm usually against holywood rem(ist)akes but i think this one might be alright
the original film was an absolute classic, yes, but the f/x look soooo dated these days
it'd be nice to see the story told with modern f/x
that said, the cgi f/x will probably end up looking worse than the old animatronics
still - if this does well then maybe they'll get the idea to remake the Running Man and this time might stick even vaugely close to the original book
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Haku
Q: How do you make a film fan's blood boil?
A: By reading this list of 55 remakes that are proposed/being made/in the can:
http://www.denofgeek.com/movies/166239/55_movie_remakes_currently_in_the_works.html
How the fuck can they re-make The Karate Kid with Will Smith's son?!? it'll suck more than a truck of Dyson's
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Evil Auditor
Re Lack of new ideas?
@Matt Bryant
"...otherwise the decline in cinema ticket sales will just continue"
I'm sure - and I'm equally sure almost every hollywood producer would confirm - the decline in ticket sales is solely due to all the film-pirating bastards out there. And it has definitely nothing to do with rubbish films and ticket prices of up to £40.
EA
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
Oh man, this sounds almost as bad...
> As the proposed remake of Smokey And The Bandit (which is to use a Mustang instead of a Trans Am)!
See, that's why GM is in the trouble it's in.
If it were me, I'd get one of the new Camaros and have the Trans Am turkey painted on the hood. A little custom tail light treatment, poncho emblems -- done.
A Mustang? Give me a break.
Paris, because someone should paint a turkey on her.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Chris
Just checking that...
... as a collective group of people who don't truly believe in working on a Friday, that we've got all the memorable lines from the film sorted out and on here. It would a crime of hollywood-remake magnitude if we didn't!
May I start the ball rolling with "If things have gone wrong, I'm talking to myself, and you've probably got a wet towel wrapped around your head. ".
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Trygve Henriksen
Want to know how Hollywood picks a movie idea?
First they gather at team of brilliant young minds in a secluded getaway, stuffed full with all they would ever need of books, computers, beer...
No...
They have a small cart of books that a manager once 'liberated' from the local library.
And now they just take turns throwing darts at the books to decide which one to turn into a movie.
The reason they make all these remakes is that they always forget to REMOVE the books they've already used, or in the case of Taxi and other popular European movies, some rookie in the office left his copy of it in the cart, thinking the cart was for 'sharing good stuff'...
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Thomas
Not so much a rehash as a hash?
Better special effects make a better movie only if your main interest in movies is the special effects. In which case, the rest of the industry is now so adept at taking your money with week after week of films about superheroes that you're not likely to be especially interested in a film about a man that can't fly.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:09 GMT Sir Runcible Spoon
I don't care
they can waste their money on re-making whatever they want - why should I give a shit?
as long as they don't fuck up the original by re-doing anything then everything is just fine.
if they want to waste their money, let them.
Flames: because really, these people ought to know where they're going.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:46 GMT Mark McC
I think you're onto something...
"We at Vulture Central favour Zac Ephron as Douglas Quaid..."
Hollywood, forget the CGI advancements and give us Total Recall: The Musical, featuring the songs
- I'll Remember You (Wholesale)
- Kuato's Lament
- Just Another Dream?
- Johnnycab Rap
- Air Today, Gone Tomorrow
- Mutant Martian Miner Medley
Not sure who could play the leads, but Verne Troyer is a shoe-in to play the stomach-dwelling psychic Kuato.
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Friday 27th February 2009 13:53 GMT Stef
Most of you seem to be under the impression...
... That Total Recall was a masterpiece. Let's be honest, it was average at best. It was no Predator or Robocop.
So what if they remake it? WE STILL HAVE THE ORIGINAL AND NO ONE IS GOING TO FORCE YOU TO WATCH THE NEW ONE.
Hollywood has never had an original idea. There are no original ideas. Take you favourite 'original' movie, and you'll find it was based on a book, or a Shakespeare play, or a Pangean cave painting. Hollywood was built by turning out 600 westerns a week, what do you expect?
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Friday 27th February 2009 14:08 GMT Alien8n
stupid remakes
The most stupifying bit of all this is the sheer quality of unmade sci-fi out there. David Brin, Carl Sagan, E E Doc Smith et al.
I actually like I Robot tbh, but they should have stuck to the Asimov timeline a bit better. Later books by Asimov would be good to see as well, the Foundation series for example.
And why stick with Sci-Fi? How about a Jackson style blitz on the other fantasy authors out there, like Eddings and Feist and Brooks. Actually now I think of it, Feist would be an amazing choice, his books often seem more like thrillers set in a fantasy world that a fantasy book with murders thrown in.
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Friday 27th February 2009 14:24 GMT RainForestGuppy
Based on a PKD story
As with all PKD movie treatments they only taken certain elements, e.g. in Total Recall the idea of having memories implanted/covered up. In the original PKD story, they don't go to mars but they found that Quaid had prevented an Alien Invasion as a child and the earth was safe while he was alive , or was that an implant as well???
However Total Recall did have one of my favorite movie scenes, Sharon Stone saying to Governor Arnie, that he could tie her up if he wanted. Cold shower time I think.
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Friday 27th February 2009 14:37 GMT Tom
Spoiler Alert
A remake might be interesting if they were going to stick closer to the book plot.
The Arnie movie, while enjoyable, certainly bore little relation to the book. Oh sure, it borrowed some plot devices, but other than that they were sufficiently different that even if the movie hadn't been licensed, they couldn't have been successfully sued for copyright infringement.
Of course, I don't expect Hollywood to ever make a movie where the hero dies and then the Earth gets blown up.
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Friday 27th February 2009 16:04 GMT Chika
wHollyWeird strikes again
Let's face it, wHollyWeird hasn't got a clue. I forget when they last made a show that I wanted to watch, and that includes the increasing number of remakes to add to the volume of sequels, prequels and other crud they make.
Having said that, this is what to expect when you let the beancounters loose. They have little imagination and no guts, so anything new is likely to scare them shitless, hence the slew of "guaranteed moneymaking schemes" such as... remakes, sequels, prequels and such.
Why bother with a live action remake? Crank up the CGI at Dreamworks, Pixar or Blue Sky and do it that way! Whoops, that's an idea! It'll cost money! It's risky! KILL IT! KILL IT!!!
Okaasaaaaaaan!!!
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Friday 27th February 2009 16:36 GMT Mr Lodestone
Cirocco Jones, not Indiana
Why not John Varley's Gaea trilogy? (SPOILER ALERT) Lesbian scenes, topless titanides fighting a living god in the shape of a fifty-foot marilyn Monroe, giant snakes. With all the film allusions in the novels Hollywood would love it.
But please don't Hollywood. You'd screw it up royally. In fact I'm sorry I gave you the idea. Here, look into this while I put my sunglasses on...
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Friday 27th February 2009 16:39 GMT Bod
No... No... No... No... and... No
It's wrong in just every way. The original may have dated in some ways, but you still can't remake a classic like this and have it work.
After all, look at all the attempts to remake Rear Window or Psycho. The originals are dated, but still remains the best. Same goes for a pile of other Hitchcock films.
Without Verhoeven behind it either it will lose the satirical piss take of US culture that goes way over American's heads and makes it all the more funny (see Starship Troopers for an even more funny example of this. Unbelievable how many people just don't get that one and think it's a serious sci-fi. lol!).
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Anonymous Coward - What's wrong with the "suites"
I, personally, have little problem with the "suites". I would miss the suites during a football match for example. What if the suites hadn't been available for "One night in Paris"!!! Now, it's those damn SUITS that I blame in Hollywood, and also, within our Banking system, that's where I lay the blame ("@#!!@# is a banker, and he banks all day")!!!
Just tossing my threepence ha'penny into the debacle.....
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:23 GMT Kevin Campbell
Re: Ringworld
Absolutely! Agree completely. Excellent choice. Or the Lensman series. Or the Dragonriders of Pern. Or any of a HOST of classic sci-fi novels that HAVEN'T YET BEEN BUTCHERED, er, I mean, MADE INTO MOVIES.
If they can do a credible job with LOTR, then these CAN be done right - so long as the right people are involved. My personal faves would be the Larry Niven classic, "A World Out of Time", or even better "Inferno" by Niven and Jerry Pournelle. I re-read those two every couple of years.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:23 GMT MinionZero
They come from the same planet, but are from different worlds...
Writer: I've got an original idea which I think is great.
Rich Exec: So your idea is unproven in the market then.
Writer: But they are crying out for something original!
Rich Exec: They are, that's why we cast someone new in an old successful film idea.
Writer: But that's not original!
Rich Exec: Our marketing team say that's a 18.37% different film. 15%-20% sell, >20% too risky.
Writer: But I want to sell a 90%-100% original idea.
Rich Exec: I'm sorry, but until you can show its a success, we are not going to make it.
Writer: But how can I prove it can be a success, without making it?!
Rich Exec: Have you considered adapting an existing film idea?
Rich Exec's seek positions of money and power to rule over others. They are not interested in developing an imagination. That's someone else's job. Problem is, without much of an imagination, they cannot imagine new film ideas. All they can do is imagine existing film ideas adapted. Which is exactly what most of them do ... I've actually had this kind of discussion with their kind more times than I can remember. They cannot see (and don't want to see) beyond what has already been done before.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
Whatever Happened to the Making of...
The Talisman by Stephen King and Peter Straub?
A LOTR quality remake of Battlefield Earth in 3 Movies or Made to TV Miniseries.
CGI Clone Wars remake of all the last Star Wars movies. Is it being developed?
The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison - Slippery James De-gritz would make a great movie character. James Woods would be perfect.
The Spell Singer - CGI.
Much better than remaking the cult classic Total Recall.
Why Paris? Because she would do better as a voice actor.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:23 GMT Anonymous Coward
I read it somewhere...
... that they were only remaking TR because some idiot thought a movie+game would be a good idea. Got to say I'd be more appreciative of the game than the rehashed movie (how can you get anyone to match the baddies in the original - Ronny Cox, Michael Ironside and - of course - Sharon Stone).
Still if you don't like it, just don't pay the dosh to see it at the flics and definitely don't buy the DVD/BlueRay.
But then again, I am the same person who thought "I, Robot" was quite entertaining. Just wish they'd make a good version of "Shockwave Rider" (John Brunner) - especially now that George W is outta-Dodge.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT Bad Beaver
No.
Awww, WHY?! The movie is pretty perfect as is. Any "improvements" would likely rise the PC-factor, and what is Total Recall without all the boobs, MP-wielding dwarfs in stockings, gore and general fourletteredness? The original cast is outstanding. Whom would they cast now?! Vin Diesel & some plastic bunnies?
Tell you what, they can feel free to pull a "special edition" on it and replace some of the more corny effects with CGI. That would be ok but also — unnecessary. I like Arnold's puppet head quite well.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT Chris
RE: Cirocco Jones, not Indiana
Oooh, I like it! Or any other Varley. Ophiuchi Hotline has much the flavor of H2G2. Oh wait, They already screwed up Millennium. But then again, Varley asked for it himself by turning an excellent short story into a mediocre novel.
I also second the Niven idea. They could make a whole series of just the adventures of Beowulf Shaeffer alone, although a tall skinny albino isn't right for an action hero.
Let me also be the first to nominate Ursula K. LeGuin, particularly "The Left Hand of Darkness".
The there is Gordon R. Dickson's Dorsai trilogy (or the whole Childe Cycle), or Harry Harrison's "Stainless Steel Rat" or Deathword Trilogy.
Phillip Jose Farmer's Riverworld series, and more.
Alien, because... well, duh!
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT Daniel B.
Get your ass to Mars
While I do think it might benefit with new FX stuff... I doubt it would be even half as good as the original one.
Funnily, I frequently pass through one of the filming locations (Mexico City's Chabacano Subway Station) and I've sometimes joked on that topic, like hitting the ground if you ever see Arnie running up the long escalators (which I also frequently use). Wonder if they'll use it again this time...
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT John Dougald McCallum
SF&F films/Movies
If they must make films with CGI in them then how about any of the following :-
The Deeds of Packsinarion (3 books) Nine Princes in Amber(6 Books?) The Serano Legacy(3 books)There is enough work to keep an army of screen writers busy for a couple of decades even if they start right now Alien cos well just COS
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT Anonymous Coward
@Chika
"Why bother with a live action remake? Crank up the CGI at Dreamworks, Pixar or Blue Sky and do it that way! Whoops, that's an idea! It'll cost money! It's risky! KILL IT! KILL IT!!!"
Have you ever actually seen anything Pixar has made, or are you just being angry at The Man to make yourself look cool?
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT kain preacher
New Ideas
Hollywood is cared of them. They rather do remakes and formulaic moves than take a chance. I think in the last 4 years of renting moves I saw 3 that I would of paid to go see in theaters. Seriously I dont know how holly wood is staying a float. I wouldn't bother down loading %99.99 of the crap that passes as entertainment . Its like asking a Linux zealot to run windows .
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT Nic Hoy
@David Hicks
The I, Robot film is a bit of a mash-up but the main plot is based on the Asimov book Caves of Steel.
As others have said Total Recall (much like Minority Report) is far enough removed from the source material for a 'Re-imagining' rather than a remake; like Tim Burton's Planet of the Apes.
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Friday 27th February 2009 23:27 GMT OrsonX
@Paul Murphy re:Ringworld
Partly agree. I was enjoying Ringworld until about 2/3 of the way through when Larry clearly got bored and finished it up mid action... "and they all went home happily ever after" The End.
Here's a better suggestion: Consider Phlebas
I suggest spending every cent left in Hollywood making this epic, the Orbitals being zapped would look awesome (& make the Halo fanboys cry... "but, but": no, Iain got there first, er, after Larry, sort of..)
Here's another suggestion: re-make The Phantom Bollox, I don't know, for starters leave out robots that say "Roger Roger", .......... (could go on for ever on this one).
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Dave
My first thoughts...
...were WTF? Why?
My second thoughts were less focused, more fuzzy and musing on Sci Fi, loosly aimed towards Paul Murphey (but aimed like a friendly orange, not a board-eraser):
Sci fi films are a dissapointment these days; the only hope I have is that James (Aliens Terminator Abyss) Cameroon's *Avatar* will be all it promises to be, you can do it JC! Computer games offer a good way to present novels since they take several days or weeks to digest, not hours- though really, I just want to crash/shoot things; Bungie, creators of Halo, say they are more influenced by sci fi literature than by Sci Fi movies. Just read the book. Niven rocks, though until recently I had only come across his concepts through Iain M Banks, Halo and Arthur C Clarke. The best film adaptations take huge liberties with the original novel because they want to make a good FILM (or just becuase they HAVE to, in the case of PKDick or William S Burroughs). Blade Runner and Total Recal fucking rock. Is Baxter a cYOUnt? I haven't decided but I'm leaning towards Yes. (Baxter as in "Asimov, Baxter and Clarke" "Aren't you forgeting Bradbury?"- Bart Simpson. )
How would you like a move of Consider Phleabus to be made? "With a fucking large budget" - Ian Banks.
WTF? Why remake Total Recall? Make something new, it might work!
/ focus returning
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Chris Malme
@Doug Glass
That should be "*We* Can Remember It For You Wholesale", and it was a (long) short story, rather than a book. Not to be mistaken for the novelisation of the film, by Piers Anthony.
You are right that it was far superior to the film (which stuck close to the original for about the first 20 mins, up to the first attempted memory implant). However, it (the short story) was really a bit of a shaggy dog story, so I reckon it would have been pretty much unfilmable in the original form.
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Claire Rand
cash in...
on LOTR by making dragonlance
ringworld would be good, if done right, but footfall may be better, and has the advantage of allowing them to reuse the 'asteroid hitting the earth' bit as a trailer
mote in gods eye would be nice but i;d bet they would change the name to avoid 'offence', the sequel would be better but you would have to do the first one first
the heir to the empire triology would be excellent as well, if done right (i.e. letter the badies loose as opposed to the goodies win)
there are a lot of good stories out there, i guess the remakes are seen as 'safe' somehow
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT John Bailey
On the bright side..
If the Hollywood movie industry dies, then all the other countries where quality is not calculated in total minutes of CGI might get a look in. Some of the Korean horror, and other far eastern stuff is pretty good. A slightly bigger budget in places, would help. They already have some great plots that don't involve teenage girls running from psychopaths in their underwear.
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Eric Crippen
Remake Actors
As average as the original was, I can't imagine a remake being any better. Either way, I can wait until it hits the dollar bins at the video store.
Now, if they did a southpark version, I might go see that. They could have a scientology tangent with the whole alien thing... have a bit with Tom Cruise in a closet... maybe some Mormon or ginger people as a sub-plot...
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Richard Joseph
@Kevin - No, the crap movie is a new form of Anti-piracy...
....they're calling it HUMDRM. Basically, they save money during the production phase (low budget script, actors, effects etc) and when you've seen the movie once, you don't want to see it again. As the movie is so bad in the first place, there's no need to pirate it, distribute it amonst friends, and once the word is it out that the movie is so poor, your local car booter can't sell it, either. Remember, HUMDRM, it has already been used on the remake of "The Day the Earth stood still".
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Monday 2nd March 2009 10:38 GMT Anonymous Coward
Re: Ringworld, etc.
Seeing decent adaptations of Nivens' books would be good; I'd also like to see the same for Keith Laumer. There are enough Retief stories to make a few years of weekly episodes; for the CGI fans, the Bolos would be perfect. In addition, he did several novels that would be great movies.
netgeek
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Monday 2nd March 2009 12:10 GMT Anonymous Coward
If it's Hollywood making it...
...it's probably better that they stick with a remake. Can you imagine the horror of them butchering a Larry Niven story? Another feeble attempt to convert some of William Gibson's work into a piss poor film?
Let Hollywood have the remakes, it's about all they're good for. Get a decent British film maker to have a go for a change - they'll probably do a monumentally better job for significantly less cash if the Hollywood suits aren't involved!
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Wednesday 4th March 2009 10:09 GMT Anonymous Coward
I dare Hollywood.....
... to make a SERIOUS attempt at making "The Mote in God's Eye" or even (god forbid) "Footfall", two of the best sci-fi stories ever written. They did a very good job on "2001 : A Space Odyssey" and "Blade Runner" (regardless of Harrison Ford's dislike of the voice-over), but have messed up so many others that I fear even a remake of TR would be total and utter dross !
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Wednesday 4th March 2009 11:17 GMT Alistair
Battelfield Earth
Time to revisit this one, methinks. I read the book once years ago and it was a right rollocking roller coaster of a read. This was long before I'd heard of LRH's other excess of course.
The first film "imagining" was a travesty, but the first half of it is reasonable. Just stop the disk at the point where the humans learn to fight back, as the shitewood ending has them throwing off their alien oppressors (thereby removing any possibility of a sequel).
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Wednesday 4th March 2009 20:07 GMT Anonymous Coward
While we are updating late 80s/early 90s films
How about remaking "Die Hard" as the saga of honest mortgage holder/taxpayer John McClain cleaning evil bankers/derivatives traders out of the Citibank building! The UK version could have him exterminating financiers out RBS' headquarters with the finale being McClain dropping that "Fred the Shred" guy out of a window from 30 stories up!
Or Lindsay Lohan/Amy Winehouse starring as a drug-addled former celebutante trying to resurrect her once-promising career in a new run at "Less Than Zero".
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Thursday 5th March 2009 00:33 GMT mittfh
A couple of additional suggestions
Why not do movie versions of Teletubbies or ITNG? They're considerably more intelligent than much of the stuff that gets churned out these days...particularly films labelled "Comedy" (i.e. aimed at MTV fans [Jackass, Pimp My Ride [1], PH's BFF, 'nuff said])
Or how about one where the hero valiantly attempts to stop the ex-banker walking away with a pension worth £14k a day...
Since said hero seems to be AWOL IRL...
Actually, a good one to make nowadays, especially given the number of people surgically attached to their phones, would be Stephen King's "Cell" - and Wikipedia claims there will indeed be a film, and it will probably start shooting this year :) Let's just hope the director doesn't trash it...
[1] Read: A Team film, new Knight Rider, etc. etc.
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Thursday 5th March 2009 05:12 GMT wim
why ? here is why
For everybody asking why they do remakes here are some suggestions.
1 they already "own" the idea so they don't have to pay for an idea anymore.
2 Holywood does not make movies they make a product. That product has to be as marketable as possible. Hollywood will tell you what is good and you will believe it. As a fine example look at dark knight. I admit it is a well executed movie but was it really impossible to have an original idea in the Batman universe ? But now they remaked the first batman so they have a license to remake the rest.
3 Holywood hates risks. They think that because a movie was succesful in the past any remake will automatically successful in the future.
So unless the majority of movie consumers shifts away from remakes and hollywood crap you will keep seeing the same movies again and again. Most people now go to see a movie to spend (waste) some time. they don't go to see movies because they appreciate the beauty of a perfect shot or the challenge of a movie that makes you think about society/morals/whatever.
I sugest you start looking at non US movies. Korean movies for example they are fresh and the directors are not afraid to use shots and ideas hat would be impossible in Hollywood. Have a look at Sex is zero (Korean) The brassiere (Hong Kong), Left turn right turn (or right turn left turn can't be bothered to look it up also Korea). Romantic comedies but so refreshing compared to the hollywood crap as what happens in Vegas. those three movies are also watchable with your girlfriend/boyfriend/spouse.
For a very good martial arts movie look at chocolat (vietnam) amazing fight scenes. I think the movie is about 80-85 percent action. Compare that to most modern fighting movies.
Rant over
end of the line
don't look at Hollywood crap anymore if you want to see some changes.
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Thursday 5th March 2009 05:12 GMT unitron
@ Matthew
"Oh man, this sounds almost as bad...As the proposed remake of Smokey And The Bandit (which is to use a Mustang instead of a Trans Am)!"
They've already done it. It's called Knight Rider.
I just wish that the recall TV series had lasted longer.
(mine's the one with the personal O2 supply in the pocket)
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Friday 6th March 2009 16:28 GMT blackworx
Could be good, could be awful
The only thing I have to say about the original is that it has not ONE single wasted frame. A rehash has a lot of potential, but it also has a feck of a lot to live up to.
While we're on the subject, does anyone know what happened to planned remake of Edge of Darkness? Please tell me it was killed off.
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Monday 9th March 2009 15:36 GMT Martin Glenn
Who loves you and who do you love?
You beat me to the suggestion of the Running Man, But I agree with a lot of posters on here in both respects, If it bothers you that much don't watch the remake. Also there is a myriad of fine Sci-Fi out there that could be used for original ideas to base a good movie on.
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Monday 9th March 2009 20:40 GMT Inachu
The original was awsome!
The original TV show was awsome and I used to be able to find the reruns online but can't find them anymore maybe on hulu dot com.
But the american version was also awsome and I hope with todays technoly they make it even better.
I hope the plot still revolves around the planet mars.
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Wednesday 11th March 2009 11:04 GMT James Hughes
Good titles to film
What about Peter Hamilton's books - any of them, but starting with one of the Greg Mandel ones. Rollicking stuff.
And the people who thing EE 'Doc' Smith books should be filmed. Ug. Cheap space opera. Read some decent SF, unless you are under the age of 14 when they are probably OK.
City and the Stars - A.C. Clarke. Cracking good stuff.
Strata by Terry Prachett - just to give the Intelligent Design people something to crow/argue about.
I like the idea of Iain M Banks Consider Phlebas, but perhaps Use of Weapons, just to confuse everyone?
Ohh, so many good stories to film., Roll on the time when we can plug a book in to the computer and it films it for us....hmm. not that's an idea. I claim copyright on that.
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Biting the hand that feeds IT
