Evidently, each Hwood studio has some researcher on staff whose job it is to sort through successful 80s movies and suggest remakes or sequels. We already know about plans for Ghostbusters III and Adventures in Babysitting. But today, the whole 80s trend gets kicked into high gear with the announcement of three remake projects:
Arthur (1981): A boozy playboy rascal is set to inherit a fortune if he marries an heiress his family thinks will make something out of him. However, he falls in love with a working-class woman and turns to his valet for help when his family makes him choose between money and love.
Romancing the Stone (1984): A repressed romance novelist travels to Colombia to find her missing sister only to meet up with an American soldier of fortune. The two embark on a cross-country adventure involving a map, a jewel and a private police force.
They Live (1988): A down-on-his-luck construction worker discovers glasses that let him see aliens walking among us and controlling humanity. The man races against the clock to find a way to stop them.
Can K-9 be far behind?
They’re doing a remake of MEATBALLS, too, though that’s from 1979, but still …
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1051351/
MEATBALLS? Can you believe it?
“Kids are starving in India and you’re walking around with a sombrero full of peanuts.”
Josh, I guess the rationale goes something like this:
* Doing a remake of a well-known movie in the past means that there will be built-in audience awareness for B.O. release (i.e., makes marketing easier)
* We will not only get new / younger audience, but also attract at least some of the original audience
* 20 years time is just long enough to allow the new project to feel ‘fresh,’ but not so long ago that it will feel dated
* And probably the bottom line, since everyone at Hwood studios is afraid of losing their job, how can they be blamed by remaking a successful movie
There are probably other reasons, but those strike me as the most obvious ones.
I don’t even think that, necessarily, some remakes are a bad thing (A STAR IS BORN, for example) but for some films it’s simply a recipe for disaster – a film like MEATBALLS is just asking for trouble as a remake because that film was Bill Murray … certain comedies and classics (like GODFATHER) are so successful I think it’s actually bad business to try and remake them because they won’t make money (like PSYCHO) and people will jeer … that’s just my opinion, of course …
I think it’s better to take flawed films and remake them (OCEAN’S ELEVEN) … I liked WAR OF THE WORLDS, redux …
But some movies, I don’t know what they were smoking when they said, “Go!”.
Just my opinion, of course.
That being said, I have to say that the trailer for THE EARTH STOOD STILL looks pretty dang good … that film, however, is well over fifty years old …
But Keanu looks perfectly cast.
I agree, Josh: There are certain movies that should never be remade. You note Meatballs. Try to think what would happen if they tried to remake Animal House. Without Belushi? Disaster!