The Hollywood Remakes Problem

The Problem

Hollywood is remaking the wrong movies.

Wax on, Turn off.

The Backstory

In addition to the terrible flood of board game adaptations (Battleship the movie will be playing in December!) and the endless sequels that are now coming out, in a desperate attempt to avoid creative, original thought Hollywood is also redoing all of our favorite movies -- and wrecking everything we loved about them in the process.

This is not new, but lately there has been an especially noticeable dearth of original film ideas.  In the next year or so, modern updates of Total Recall, Evil Dead, The Warriors, The Three Musketeers (again) and RoboCop will all be at a theater near you.  The problem with this is, Hollywood chooses only movies that were already done very well and were hugely popular, and then, unsurprisingly, is unable to live up to its own past success.  Pyscho, Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, Poseidon and the Stepford Wives all come to mind as particularly hideous failures.  Psycho is especially maddening as it was a shot for shot remake of a classic -- intended as an exact modern duplicate -- yet it still sucked.

The executives' logic is obvious.  There is already a huge fan base for this, so (like other properties where a big fan base existed before the film -- Harry Potter, Lord of the Rings, X-Men) a new version will be hugely successful and make lots of money because everyone already loves it.  This fallacy is also the root of our board game adaptation problem.  Unfortunately for the executive that success rarely materializes.  Remakes on the whole do not do so well financially for the studio and are loathed by the viewers.  There are exceptions to this, True Grit for instance was very good (still prefer the original), but they are rare.

The Longest Movie (Yard)

The Solution

Rather than remaking great stories from the past that were executed perfectly, Hollywood should focus on remaking great stories that were executed poorly.

Despite the current focus on brand name recognition, I think that movies always have and always will rise and fall based on the quality of their stories.  So, if you are going to mine the studio archives for anything it should be for that -- a good story.  But if you redo a good story that was already done well, you are setting your movie against a standard that it will never match.  A great movie alone is tough to compete with, but a great movie plus nostalgia -- it's nearly impossible.

So if story is the most important thing, how can a bad movie with a good story exist already?  Generally this happens when the idea is brilliant, but the script writing does not live up to the quality of the idea.  Sometimes it's also the result of bad directing, acting, special effects, chemistry etc... but I think that usually it all goes back to the writer.

let me give you an example of what I'm talking about.  My Hollywood remake suggestion: 2009's The Invention of Lying.  The idea is that the world is exactly like it is now, but with one crucial difference ... everyone tells the truth.  All the time.  Then, one day, an ordinary man realizes he can lie.  Imagine the power that comes with that realization.  This should have been a brilliant comedy.  It should have been Groundhog Day.  But it wasn't.  It spends too long insulting Ricky Gervais in a way that is more cruel than funny, and half way through it makes a major right turn into religious allegory.  I would wait a few years, until the last memories of the first movie have disappeared, and then I would rewrite and remake this immediately.  The potential for brilliance is still there.  This is the kind of thing I'd like to see someone take a second chance on.

Jim Carrey -- Christmas Killer

Notes

Another movie that deserves a second chance is Year One.  There is a lot of comic potential in the dawn of history.  Unfortunately it was wasted on Jack Black and Michael Cera as two completely uninteresting, unfunny cave men.  Do Not See This Movie.  At least until it is remade.

Also, doesn't it seem like the studios are waiting less and less time before they're willing to redo something?  Seriously, a Spiderman reboot already?  The rule of thumb for popular movies should be, if people who saw the original in the theaters are probably dead now, then it's ok.  Otherwise, you need to wait.