Question: Why do dogs lick their genitals?
Answer: Because they can.
Question: Why do movie studios remake classic movies?
Answer: Because they can.
File this idea under uh-oh!:
EXCLUSIVE: Fresh off Disney’s massive success with Tim Burton’s “Alice in Wonderland,” Warner Bros. wants to remake another childhood classic. Like, really classic.The studio is examining two existing “Wizard of Oz” projects, with an eye toward giving one of them a modern gloss and moving it toward the screen.
One project, called “Oz,” currently lives at Warner’s New Line label. It’s being produced by Temple Hill, which is behind a little franchise called “Twilight,” and has a script written by Darren Lemke, a writer on the upcoming “Shrek Forever After.”
A second “Wizard of Oz” project, set up at Warners proper, skews a little darker — it’s written by “A History of Violence” screenwriter Josh Olson and focuses on a granddaughter of Dorothy who returns to Oz to fight evil. “Clash of the Titans” producer Basil Iwanyk and his Thunder Road Pictures are behind that one. (“Spawn” creator Todd MacFarlane is potentially involved in a producerial capacity, to give you some idea of the tone.)
While the idea of a new “Wizard of Oz” movie is said to be in the development, let’s-bat-this-around stage, it’s been advanced seriously enough on the lot that representatives for some of the top directors around Hollywood have been briefed.
GITS readers… please any of you… talk me down off the ledge on this one.
Is there any redeeming merit you can see — creatively — for either of these projects to go forward? Or is this just another example of a movie studio licking its genitals?
I thought Return to Oz was pretty good. And if someone took the darkness of Baum's original story and put it in theaters I might be inclined to check it out.
I'm sort of with Patrick. One of my better specs is a sequel of sorts to Baum's original novel – though unlike RETURN TO OZ it's a bit darker and doesn't use any specific plots from the books.
Plus there are enough differences between Baum's book and the '39 movie that I could see some merit in re-adapting the original story. The obvious problem is that the popularity of the Garland film has probably eclipsed the book, so the project will be less less like an adaptation of the novel and more like a "remake" of the original film – which WOULD be a fool-hardy pursuit.
I just hope they don't stray too far from the source material. The SyFy miniseries TIN MAN was six hours of sheer tedium and bad creative choices. At a minimum, you need to have some version of Dorothy in there and not just a younger descendant of hers cast in the same sort of function.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO!!!!!!!!
Dogs licking their genitals is too neutral a metaphor. It's more like a junkie pawning priceless family heirlooms for a quick fix.
Don't get me wrong, the land of Oz is a rich source of stories. "Return to Oz" with Fairuza Balk (who I think is a better Dorothy than Judy Garland) was a gritty, clever, imaginative sequel. "Wicked" is a fantastic Broadway show that made a very plausible case for an alternative reading of the characters. "Tin Man" by Sci Fi Channel was so-so. But I can't imagine anything good could come of these two proposals before us. Nothing about them suggests anything more than an attempt to make money. The 'granddaughter of the hero' cliche evokes many pointless sequels like "The Son of Robin Hood" or "The Son of Frankenstein".
Do these studio heads really think they have a chance at making a movie near as good as "The Wizard of Oz"? If not, why bother? Why not do something original instead? How long will "Pan's Labyrinth" have to be the only example of thrilling, original (as in, not based on a prior book, TV series or video game) cinematic fantasy in the past few years?
this sounds like a remake only inasmuch as alice is a remake – i.e. not at all. while i'm not thrilled about hollywood returning to the same source material for another adaptation, this isn't the worst news i've heard.
plus, on the day of the tron trailer, do we really have to hate remakes? shakespeare wrote remakes
I agree with samuel. I have a history of jumping to "HOW COULD THEY!?! BLASHEME!" in regards to remaking old classics. I generally anticipate that they'll be counting on nostalgia to draw viewers in rather than an actual good product. But after seeing the Tron trailer today, as well as the surprisingly bearable Karate Kid trailer, and a Where the Wild Things Are movie that didn't kill my childhood memories with horror… I'm actually growing optimistic where it comes to remakes/long after sequels/adaptations. However, that doesn't mean I endorse them. They just don't compel me to stab things any more.
Maybe it's the purist in me, but come on man, some things are just better left alone. Let's remake Casablanca and Shawshank while were at it.
If someone were to make films faithfully based on the Baum books, I wouldn't complain. However, these projects sound brain-dead from the get-go.
Josh Olson has a lot of time to really nail it, since he won't read my fucking script.
I could see this coming. "Alice" and "Wizard" are very similar, so it was only a matter of time until someone thought about this.
I've always said that if an oz film every hits theatres now— it needs to be a faithful adaptation of the first book.
And, I remember reading that a CGI version of that is actually being made right now. But, clearly it's not mainstream if we have talks about two other projects.
When I was younger, I always told people I was going to be the one to adapt the book faithfully to the screen.
Burton's Alice was good, but really— I'm sick and tired of all these stupid "updates" and "dark twists."
Yeah, but will the new one snyc to Dark Side of the Moon?
Nothing is sacred. I've got no problem with that. Shakespeare's output would have been pretty meager if he had not given old material updates and dark twists. Of course, there aren't a lot of Shakespeares around, but I don't see a valid objection in principle to any of these projects.