“Long live the old flesh!”
The remake craze in Hollywood trudged on Monday with the announcement that Universal picked up the rights to redo the bizarre 1983 horror David Cronenberg flick, Videodrome. Ehren Kruger, a co-writer of Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen is set to write the script.
The announcement merely continues the disturbing trend of the studios picking up movies of the mid (or even late) 80s and remaking them. We’ll also supposedly be seeing “new” versions of Romancing the Stone, The Last Starfighter, Back to School, Clash of the Titans, Short Circuit, etc. Movie audiences are simply going to have to sit through a CGI version of the 80s.
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The concept of a remake is not a new one in the movie business, but the audacity of making most of a decade’s successful films less than a generation since the originals played in multiplexes reveals just how crippled by fear Hollywood has become.
With conglomerate overlords relying on movie studios to make up for losses suffered by other divisions of a given corporation, studio executives at all levels are afraid anything less than a hit will cost them their jobs. The best way to secure that hit is to have a big premiere weekend, so studios look to familiar titles to guarantee a safe opening.
Along the way, the odds of any studio taking a risk of spending time and money on an original idea — from script to screen — are dwindling rapidly in the new remake-happy culture. We may not see the real cost of that lack of originality until years down the road as there’s so little out there to inspire new writers and filmmakers.
The current generation of creative folk in Hollywood might point to Star Wars or Raiders of the Lost Ark as their inspiration. The pros assisting them and waiting to move up might look to The Matrix as their eye-opener. But what are kids watching these days that will spark their creative fires? A remake of Footloose?
As one agent told me this week, “The studios are no longer in the development business. They’re only interested in the ’sure thing.’”
And, somehow, a shiny new version of The Swarm (no kidding) is what this new Hollywood considers “a sure thing.”
What do you think about a Videodrome remake?
Source: Variety
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8 Comments
WHAT !!?!??!?!?!
i loved videoDrome as far as loving James woods’Films Goes.
but what i loved about it was all the Pratical effects that’ll probly be done in CG now&days.
i love David Cronenberg
and the way the story progresed but i have no idea how there gunna Remake it to please the Fans *(Oh Wait!)* they Never do that.
this saddens me
Sad.
Hollywood wonders why the films aren’t doing as well as they could… want some real advice from someone who used to LOVE the movies?
Enough with the freaking remakes. Very few films actually deserve it, the story was told, it was good for what it was and when it was made. Let it rest. So many of those storylines have already been turned around slightly and rehashed that no matter how “fancy” you make it with CGI and all the other techniques, it’s still a freaking rerun.
Stick to the Darn material. Once you start ‘tweaking’ the storyline, changing details of the main character, altering the location, the time frame, the look, eventually all you have left is the name. If you can’t logistically do it, don’t. Put it on the shelf for a couple of years and wait until you CAN do it, or just don’t buy the option at all.
Look at the other media already existing. Try looking at some of the so-called underground material, that which shows up on the internet in a serialized form or has a small but loyal following in paperback. The “Broken Saints” series comes to mind, it was really good for what it was, but if it had been more animated instead of the stop motion application that it was I could see a nice series or two feature films made from it.
Stop inserting drama for drama’s sake and gratuitous violence/sex. if it is part of the story, fine, if not, it’s filler, you don’t want it in your food, you don’t want it in your movie either.
Enough with the merchandising blitz. when I see crap from a movie EVERYWHERE before it comes out, I burn out. After a bit I could care less if I actually see the movie at all, I’ve already seen the most exciting parts on a cup from a fast food chain, I’ve already seen the monster/villain/hero in the toy store as a poseable action figure, I see the commercial every 15 minutes on every channel, after a while I just don’t care anymore. Hold back until the week before the movie premiere. Stop putting the stuff in the toy store 6 months before the movie comes out. Once the punchline has been heard, the joke is no longer funny.
Instead of spending all the money on remakes, why doesn’t the studio just re-release the original? I mean THAT would save lots of money and since it’ll cost $10 to see a 25 year old movie, they’ll make more than it did originally back during initial release. {end sarcasm}
This is getting ridiculous, but the real tragedy is that there are people that are out there that GO to see these remakes, thus making it profitable for the studios to do. If people stopped paying to see this garbage, then the studios will stop making them.
Kill me now.
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