Remake # 798: Capricorn One

Niall Browne — Thu, 05 Jun 2008 18:59:32 +0000

Yes, it’s another week and therefore there must be the announcement of yet another remake.

This time it’s Peter Hyams’ 1978 Sci-Fi thriller Capricorn One.

The original was a neat conspiracy tale following three astronauts (James Brolin, Sam Waterston and O.J Simpson, yes that O.J Simpson) on a manned mission to Mars. However, they didn’t really land on Mars. Due to a fault with their ship, they are in fact in a film studio in the desert filming, their “Mars walks” on a sound stage.

Elliott Gould plays an investigative journalist who suspects that the landings have been faked.

Soon Brolin, Waterston and Simpson are on the run (some things never change) fighting for their lives in the desert, while Gould is trying to nail the story of the century.

Fellow Irishman John Moore will direct the film. Moore seems to have a love of remakes (and the desert), having previously helmed remakes of The Omen and The Flight of the Phoenix.

I really enjoyed the original film, and I like Moore’s work in Behind Enemy Lines and Phoenix (I can’t bring myself to watch The Omen though) so I think that this could be a neat film and a pretty decent remake.

The new film has been penned by Peter Buchman, who wrote Steven Soderbergh’s (possible) two-part Che Guevara pic.

However, I have to ask: When will all these remakes end?

Probably never, but seriously, how many remakes have been announced lately?

Just off the top of my head I can think of:

The Bad Lieutenant, I Spit on Your Grave, Highlander, Flash Gordon, Conan, RoboCop, Friday The 13th, The Dirty Dozen, Escape From New York and Plan 9 From Outer Space.

That’s a lot of movies, considering the number of writers out there with original ideas that are floating around Hollywood.

However these remakes have built in brand recognition, and once the remake is in the can the studios can start repackaging the original film on DVD. What I find even more bizarre is that they are now making sequels to remakes (see the Ocean’s movies and the forthcoming Topkapi Affair!).

Capricorn One isn’t a beloved classic. So I don’t mind this film being re-made – it could be a pretty fun movie if done correctly. Plus, it will help the little seen original film find an audience thirty years after it first hit the big screen, and that’s not a bad thing – you just can’t beat a good bit of Elliott Gould.

It is also interesting to point out that both Elliott Gould and James Brolin have been married to Barbara Streisand (Brolin still is).

Source: Variety

Screen Rant » capricorn one

Remake # 798: Capricorn One