Remake Hollywood Not ‘Videodrome’
by John Scott LewinskiI give up. I knew there’d be a tipping point eventually, but I didn’t expect it to involve little red and white plastic pegs and my 4-year-old Godson saying, “B6…Hit!” I surrendered to the idea that there is very little hope for genuine or inspiring creativity coming out of Hollywood while Universal is forging a deal with Hasbro to bring Battleship to the big screen.
Coming Soon to a Theater Near You!
The idea of turning a board game into a movie isn’t earth shattering. Jumanji did it about a fictional game, and there are already deals on the books to bring Ouija Board, Candyland and Monopoly to your local multiplex. But when you mix the “you sunk my carrier” news with the scoop that Disney is making a movie of Tomorrowland as a follow-up to Pirates of the Caribbean, and toss in just a dollop of the ongoing march of mid-80s remakes like the approaching new Videodrome, Red Dawn and Fright Night, we must at least consider prosecuting for fraud anyone in Hollywood who calls themselves “creative.”
There are countless screenwriters throughout Los Angeles laboring long, lonely hours to produce original stories. Most of them are god-awful and deserve to fade into obscurity, but surely some are worthy of production. In fact, a small fraction of them could prove to be the kind of movies that inspire generations — like Raiders of the Lost Ark inspired my peers.
Give some thought to what’s in theaters these days that would ignite a kid’s imagination to want to pick up a pencil and write a short story or to grab a video camera and shoot a short adventure starring action figures. Where’s the next Matrix or Star Wars to blast young minds and behinds out of their seats? Will it be the big screen Land of the Lost? The remake of Bill Murray’s Meatballs? The re-telling of Red Sonja?
Hollywood is so terrified of failure and potential irrelevance right now, so desperate to snag a big opening weekend for any movie produced, and so cynical over the imagination and intelligence of moviegoers that studios rarely reach for anything that’s not a remake, prequel, sequel or based on a TV show, video game comic book, novel or short story. And now you can throw in amusement park rides and board games.
In other words, anything conceived and created originally for the big screen is almost certain never to make it to said screen. That’s tragic because there are some ideas that need to be movies and some concepts that could make legendary films if they’re fostered through the development process — while also making serious scratch for the scared studios.
But those studios aren’t in the business of developing anymore. They’re widget-makers now, filling theaters and DVD shelves with anonymous product that won’t inspire audiences to look back at the source material — let along urge them to imagine what spectacular and moving stories Hollywood could tell one day.
Fortunately, there’s got to be a tipping point coming in which audiences wave off the remakes and demand original material. Maybe there’s still a glimmer of hope that Hollywood professionals who love movies — and there are some out here — will realize that they didn’t sacrifice chunks of their careers to remake Porky’s. That’s when you might start seeing original scripts breaking into the cinema marketplace again.
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69 Comments
Oh Boy! More remakes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is why I don't go to or rent to many movies anymore. Can we get some new ideas out there? Wake up Hollywood!
The film industry and the music industry do not seem to have an eye for art. It seems as though the goal is to get in and make some quick money. I can understand that to a certain extent. But when people look back at the 'golden age' it will not be of this current crop.
Where are the artists that want to create a lasting work? I have no connection to these two industries at this point in time. But if i did, I think I'd want to be remembered for decades not just be a flash in the pan.
I hope the Battleship film is a true-to-life war film with wizened seamen fighting terrorists. But the only weapons the terrorists have are giant plastic pegs.
If Land Of The Lost is a hit, I predict there will be a re-make of Lidsville.
With Rip Taylor as Hoodoo.
Yet its running headlong toward irrelevance preciously because of crap like all these remakes, reimaginings and reboots.
Add to that the fact that their politics doesn't allow them to make movies that half their audience would just eat up (and requires them to make movies that insult half their audience) and I can foresee a near future where Hollywood isn't where movies come from.
Hopefully this site will contribute to their demise in some small way.
Actually, I´d love to see a retelling of Red Sonja without the annoying kid and plenty of girl-on-girl, eh, fights. Cast Jessica Biel in the title role and Megan Fox as the evil sorceress and millions of boys will download it!
Coming soon. Shirt Tales the movie!
If people wanted to see a battleship movie, why not do The Battle of Jutland or The Battle of Leyte Gulf? Here´s why: First, historical illiteracy. Second, the awful truth is that battleships firing salvoes at each other in 20-second intervals is not terribly cinematic unless you are a fetishist like myself. Most importantly, our heroes must be the usual pretty teenagers so I guess it will be set in a parallel universe.
Is it any surprise that Hollywood writers are spinning their wheels, not going anywhere but just churning through all their old crap? Does anyone see similarities to what the auto industry has been doing? The best part is when you see an auto industry re-make (the camaro) in a Hollywood re-make (Transformers). I blame the Unions, again.
And yet . . . and yet, movies are still making money. As lousy as movies have become (I don't go to the movies anymore where I used to at least once or twice a year), people will still go to the theater. Apparently, if I remember correctly, last year was a good profit year for Hollywood compared to trends.
The reasons that Hollywood will continue making lots of money, regardless of how irrelevant, offensive, and expensive is the lock on demographics. They emake movies for the fanboys that will go just because it has been made or because they share the liberal propaganda. Any that don't make boxoffice American cash will, as explained here before, make a killing overseas. Hollywood has no real reason to change. They would rather make a lot of money where they know they can then make even more money maybe.
What is needed is a viable alternative that is not afraid of risks and aims toward middle American sensibilities. Anyone up for that? It would be nice if "Big Hollywood" finally became a place for action as much as words.
Actually, most of those sailors were just teenagers, if I remember right. The real problem with WW2 movies is that there are no white collar execs to be the villains, and the President was a Democrat. Since we can't make Americans the villains, it's probably best to avoid the subject.
I was saving all my money to produce a film, but now I have to keep saving it for a new LeCar.
Hollywood hasn’t had a true original thought in years. It’s time for new blood.
Precisely. Among this crowd we have the creative juices and entrepreneurial spirit to produce movies that Americans will want. We don't need to start with hundred-million-dollar blockbusters, we can start small. The time is ripe.
I say that some of the book authors (and not the uber popular, controversial and overrated authors like Dan Brown) pitch thier stories… there have been some books that I have read in recent months that I would LOVE to see on the big screen.. as long as they stay true to the story in the book anyway…. Now granted I have been reading stories (primarily historical fiction) that are geared towards women but there has to be stories that for everyone in the plethora of authors on the new books shelf in the library…. Crap, I would love to see Anne Rice's Life of Christ series (I don't know if that's the actual title of the series but I figure everyone will know what I am talking about) on the big screen as well…
the MBA and the marketing guys in charge focus grouped it, and the name recognition was good. get a celebrity with a high Q rating and have somebody's nephew write the screenplay. then find a director who's good at three minute rap videos. and you've got a green light.
There were two battleship movies that I remember from my childhood: "Sink the Bismarck!" and "The Battle of the River Platte" (about the pursuit and destruction of the German pocket battleship, "Graf Spee"). I thought "Sink the Bismarck!" was the more dramatic movie, especially when the "Bismarck's" captain is cradling the dying Admiral Lutjens, still clutching his congratulatory radiogram from Hitler, in his arms, or when the Royal Navy captain at Admiralty headquarters quietly sobs after receiving the news that his son who ditched his "swordfish" torpedo bomber at sea has been safely recovered. I realized movie-making was going downhill when movies based on videogames and old cartoons started appearing (Bob Hoskins in "Mario Brothers"?! Rosie O'Donnell in "The Flintstones"?! – are you kidding me??!!!)
ugh, Battleship the Movie. Sounds like someone had too many Grey Goose martinis to think up that idea. As El Gordo pointed out there is some seriously good "source material" for Hollywood to draw upon to make a 'real' battleship movie: The voyage and death of the Graf Spee, the "Brawl in the Dark" between the USN and IJN at Savo Island, the escape of the Scharnhorst and Gneisenau up the English Channel, and, of course, The Bismarck. But no! Instead we'll get some lame movie about a board game. Geesh.
Actually I suspect some studio exec has lunch with someone from Milton Bradley and Milton Bradley guy said "So how can we improve our product placement?" and the studio exec joked "Hell, lets just make movie versions of your games".
THEN they ordered a few extra Grey Goose martinis and that cemented the bad idea.
When I heard about the Battleship movie I decided to start an internet rumour that Lars Von Trier will direct an adaptation of Hungry-Hungry-Hippos for Universal and Imagine Entertainment.
Details are here: http://dknowsall.blogspot.com/2009/05/very-import...
Spread the word, I want this on the front page of Variety by Monday.
Hilarious. Lars Von Trier is an overmedicated freakoid.
I'd like to see someone do a movie of the valiant fight of Task Force 3 or "Taffy 3" in the battle of Samar. This was a force of "jeep" (escort) carriers, destroyers, and destroyer escorts that were attacked by a Japanese force of battleships and cruisers after Admiral Halsey's Third Fleet left them behind to chase a decoy fleet. In spite of being overmatched and losing three destroyers and two escort carriers, "Taffy 3" sunk three Japanese cruisers and forced the Japanese to withdraw, saving the American troop and supply ships in Leyte Gulf from destruction. Ernest Evans, captain of the destroyer, "Johnston", sunk during the battle, was posthumously awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor.
Coming soon to a theater near you- Mr. Ed- The Movie!
No, if you're making a picture called "Battleship" you need to make it about the OTHER part of the battle of Leyte — Admiral Oldendorf's squadron of battleships engaging the Japanese in the Surigao Strait. What makes it extra awesome with awesomeness sauce is that Oldendorf's battleships were ships sunk or damaged at Pearl Harbor, raised and refitted and back for revenge. Uwe Boll could make a good movie with that material to work with.
Hmm, Michael Moore in his first leading role?
Perhaps a film about the massive kamikase assault on the U.S. Fleet off of Okinawa. Told from both sides, but without the usual Hollywood moral equivelency. It should be clear to any normal moral person that sending men to commit suicide as a national policy is just plain wrong. And piss on Bushido. If we abhor Arabs doing it with idiot children and bomb belts or hands-off-my-man-panties Saudis in hijacked planes, we should abhor the thinking that sent thousands of young Japanese to thier deaths in planes or banzia waves.
Taffy 3 and the Battle of Leyte Gulf as a whole would make great material for a movie.
Hungry-Hungry-Hippos! Fantastic! I would have to see that movie just to see if they could do it.
This has been said before, but why doesn't Hollywood make a *good* remake of an old bad movie rather than a *bad* remake of an old good movie?
Hollywood sucks… ya da ya da ya da
I enjoy the occasional armchair criticizing (and I do it occassionally in front of a camera http://www.youtube.com/user/FilmmakerIQReviews) but so much of this is just knee jerk reaction some news item.
I mean a film based on the game "Battleship" – more like using the premise of Battleship… because the last time I played Battleship, the storyline wasn't exactly compelling.
But if they get Christopher Walken to utter those immortal words, "You sunk… my destroyer" – THAT would be an excellent movie.
Fact is Hollywood has been pumping out crap ever since they figured out they could charge people to watch said crap. And not all remakes/franchises are bad… Just recently we had the 40 year old Star Trek franchise reimplemented with great success. There's plenty of good films to counter the ones that were mentioned.
I might even dare say that the ratio of good films to bad films these is >gasp< actually better today than it was 20 years ago.
I rent old movies from Netflix. I've given up on "new" Hollywood years ago: too many MBAs running the show.
Wait! A remake of Porky's? Why, that changes everything! Seriously, if they are out of ideas and must remake old movies, why don't they start remaking flops that could have been better instead of hits that can't help but be worse than the originals?
I work in Hollywood and I can tell you there's plenty of creativity among the writers. But this town is run by execs without a single creative synapse who are are utterly driven by the financial bottom line and are (all but rarely) terrified to take a chance on anything original. Success in Hollywood is such a crap shoot anyway, why risk your career (the execs ask themselves) on unproven material? They hone in, not on fresh ideas, but on an existing "product" that already comes with a built-in audience (bestselling novels, remakes, video games, old TV shows, graphic novels, board games, etc.), preferably with franchise potential and tons of associated products (toys, video games, theme parks) that will keep generating profits long after the movie has disappeared from the big screen.
There ARE producers and writers who are exploring good, original material, but remember, it's a minor miracle if ANY script ever makes it to the theaters, and far too often quality and originality are necessarily shoved aside by safer, more easily marketable product.
It seems to me that it is television that is taking the biggest creative chances these days. I'd rather stay home and watch "Breaking Bad" or "Dexter" than go to the theater to watch the latest tepid remake or sequel.
Jumanji was horrendous. Zathura, oth, had the exact same plot but was much more entertaining. Extra kudos to the producers for keeping Kristen Stewart frozen for most of the movie.
They're remaking "Red Dawn," eh? Probably just a documentary about Obama's Presidential campaign!
I don't work in the entertainment industry, computer networking is my bag. But I do have a great appreciation for movies, and I'm very glad to say movies are one area where my rebellious teen age daughter and myself actually, really, bond, the way fathers and daughters used to bond in the movies.
It's obvious to me why the deluge of movies based on existing ideas, there's at least enough of a shot at an initial audience, large enough to generate a payout big enough, to write an insurance policy against.
And there are plenty of existing material that more than deserves a block buster remake. My daughter grew up loving the animated Lord of the Rings, but as dear as that is, it can't hold a candle to the modern Legolas (see above note about "teen age daughter").
But I do agree, the only time the financiers seem to want to think outside the box-office box, they find themselves still in the Hollywood box, i.e. Rendition, etc.
My gut feeling is the future is indie films. They have to take bigger risks, because no balls, no blue chips.
Of course, History Channel has, with the show Battle 360, shown that stories of World War 2 naval battles can be quite entertaining.
And Ambirch is right, they WERE teenagers. Most were between the ages of 18-22, probably.
I understand the complaint that Hollywood lacks creative talent. But … I would challenge anyone to turn this into a watchable movie:
"The game … consists of two players arranging a variety of ships on a grid. [It] proceeds in alternating salvos as players try to "sink" the opposition's ships by guessing where they sit on the grid."
You don't think some amount of creativity is required to wrap that into a coherent plot, with a beginning middle and end?
Let's not forget that a lot of movies made during Hollywood's Golden Age, were sequels or rehashes of the same story over and over again. Frankenstein? Abbott and Costello Meet …? Hope & Crosby Road pictures? How about all the screwball comedies ala Bringing Up Baby? And don't even get me started on the Lone Ranger, Superman, Buck Rogers, Flash Gordon Saturday Serials of the 30s and 40s.
I would be interested to at least see what the screenwriters, who have been challenged to create a story around Battleship, come up with.
No new ideas. They'd have to THINK to do that. besides, have you seen the quality coming out of Hollywood? Special effects are their saving grace. Settle down with a bowl of popcorn and TCM, if you want something you haven't seen before.
YOU could go to Hollywood. Toss in a few Bush jokes and have Megan Fox and Scarlett Johanssen sittin their laps before they get bored with the business conversation and start making out with each other. Could make a fortune.
His first leading role in something without his name on it… or will he want top billing?
Yeah! Remakes of "Ishtar", "Waterworld", and "Heaven's Gate"!
"My gut feeling is the future is indie films.'
If they can get their head out of their @$$.
At the risk of being savaged, I'll say that if Disney did a decent job with a "Tomorrowland" movie, it could be interesting. Of course, they kinda-sorta did that with "Meet the Robinsons", and there's always the danger of another "Haunted Mansion" or — worse — "Country Bears" movie.
Hmmm… maybe they could do a movie based on Splash Mountain! I've always thought Br'er Rabbit and Br'er Bear had potential!
Is there no viable way a movie studio could fund more films with lower budgets and see what hits? Is that something that is impossible in a way that I'm not seeing?
<In dramatic voice over mode> In a world at war two rival admirals fight a desparate battle. Hackers have conscripted the nuclear launch codes and hacked two nuclear stealth submarines on each side. David Hasshoff and Richard Greeko as captains on those subs are able to disable the diving system but the hackers shut down communications. Now two former generals race against time to find their hijacked subs before the clock runs out. But each suspects the other of leading the hackers. As spies on both sides try to determine who is behind the hacks the quest remains, find your own sub, sink the oppositions sub if possible. In the end, ultimately two battleships will meet, one will survive.
Are you saying you don't want to see Rose Mcgowan as Red Sonja? Any red-blooded American should want that – and more! I'll be interested to see if the Governator gets a walk on.
Unfortunately, conservatives hitting on this topic is akin to beating on an anvil with a copper mallet. I ought to know, as I've made a non-career out of beating on the music side of said anvil with my own copper mallet, and all I did was waste a perfectly good mallet.
When my daughter and I went to see "Star Trek" retreaded, and not too badly, I thought, we saw trailers for the next "Transformer" movie and the "GI Joe" movie. I said to her, "Good Lord, could a live-action 'Smurfs' or 'My Little Pony' be far behind?" Wouldn't you know, someone else was thinking the same thing. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sXoYK4b_q24
I think it would just depend on how it's handled. There's some awesome potential if you've got fleet action going on.
You could say much the same things about submarine movies, but Das Boot is amazing for it's tension, and The Hunt for Red October is a respectable political and technological movie.
The problem is, I haven't seen much come out of Hollywood recently that tells me these things could be handled with today's crop of studio talent. Newer directors seem CGI explosion obsessed, and most of the older ones have gone loco.
So, is it official yet, that writers in Hollywood have run out of ideas?
Black20.com has some great trailers that might spark some new ideas:
http://black20.com/black20-trailer-park
"Battleship: The Movie"…hey, here's an idea, instead of making a movie about a board game that simulates a naval battle between two mentally challenged (and blind) admirals, how about making a Saving Private Ryan quality film about The Battle of Midway?
It's only the most significant naval battle in US history and presents a ton of compelling subplots that would crackle with a well built ensemble cast; the breaking of the Japanese naval code, Nimitz and Fletcher laying the trap at Midway, the list goes on and on.
Just visualizing the CGI Dauntlesses plunge through the clouds as they prepare to send Akagi to the bottom…it would be epic.
I'm sorry, my brain must have short-circuited at the use of "Uwe Boll" and "good movie" in the same sentence.
Right. However, male teenagers won´t do it. You need a cute girl. Maybe she could be a stowaway (for love of the first mate, natch!). For additional comedy, she could also be the daughter of the grumpy but loveable admiral. Then you get the first big battle – shipwreck – interlude on tropical island – lovemaking – japs show up – hero goes Rambo, saves girl, frees prisoners, girl does awesome kung fu moves, they capture boat – back with the fleet – even bigger final battle – admiral gives daughter away at afterdeck wedding as Japan capitulates – hey, bad movies write themselves.
They never got around to do "Pong – The Movie". But they will.
Sink the Bismarck! was not bad. I saw it as a little boy and remembered exactly the same scenes you describe. When they did the movie, the memory was still fresh. It wasn´t all a big joke to the people involved.
I´m so there.
My advice: set it in space.
Yes! What I wouldn´t give to see that! But I must admit it´s not easy to dramatise it for today´s audiences. You have a multitude of heroes and no love story. No girls, no robots, no movie.
(Then again, "300" did well without those elements)
They should have made a movie about The Battle of Midway with, say, Carlton Heston, Henry Fonda, James Coburn, Glenn Ford, Robert Wagner, and Cliff Robertson. And Robert Mitchum. And use 1970s SurroundSound speakers with for explosions! It would have been awesome!
anything with ferrell makes me stay away…him and jack black, mediocre at best
Just saw the trailer for the hippo movie
Yeah, and had Toshiro Mifune play Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto.
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