I was shocked at what a black hole of charm Brandon Routh was. Superman Returns was truly awful.

Agent J, I agree completely. I think movies like Friday the 13th are "comfort movies" (to use an ironic term). The audience finds comfort in knowing exactly what it will get. . . they never have to worry that they may run into challenging or unexpected ideas or concepts. Personally, give me originality any day!

I also agree that this is destructive to our culture in many ways. For example, I would say that it teaches us to lower our expectations and it squelches/homogenizes our culture/arts/music/movies.

Andrew, the biggest problem the remake fad is the studios and actors want it both ways. They want the built-in audience, but they soon scrap everything that made the original popular in the first place for modern Hollywood cynicism, political correctness or just plain crudeness. Almost all the major remakes that failed, they all feature some sort of "refreshing" to make it more appealing and it failed. Dukes of Hazard, while not exactly great art in the 70s, was a fun series with its own set of morals and bases set. Hollywood sees that, turns it into an adult comedy, then wonder why fans and even cast members of the original thought it was a steaming pile of suck.

Say whatever you will about Friday the 13th, but Platinum Dunes has been a savvy factory, milking brand names for quick cheap easy revenue befitting Michael Bay's rep.

Re: Superman, WB publicity had its hands full trying to place a positive spin on Bryan Singer's reboot antics, after Jon Peters had nearly killed the project with earlier iterations.

"X2" succeeded with critics and audiences, so Burbank execs offered Singer a carte blanche greenlight to abandon the Marvel mutants for a more dazzling DC hero. His self-indulgent filmmaking team (which had only been partially responsible for X2's collaborative merits) went overbudget and overschedule from the get-go, avoiding red-state Kansas to build their own Smallville location in rural Australia – including 7km of roadway and multiple acres of corn meticulously farmed to mimic real-life Kansas corn. According to crew scuttlebutt, Singer's pals did much partying at Sydney nightspots, with the apparent idea that whatever faraway Burbank bosses didn't know, wouldn't harm anyone.

By the time the "final cut" was submitted to Warners, execs were horrified to discover a bloated (and cheesy) drama with no action. Desperate to salvage their investment and placate fans in time for the promised release date, the studio leaders shoved Singer and his writers aside, deleted all the embarrassing dialogue among Luthor's henchmen (who now became mute goons), and hired a new team to create action sequences which would be inserted into the storyline in 3D for IMAX release.

Final cost = $270mil for a movie that earned only $391m worldwide – not the phenomenon WB had banked on. Ironically, Brett Ratner had been knocked out of the Kryptonian director's chair, only to replace Singer on X3 – which cost less and earned more (210m budget…459m revenue). Superman Returns could have a scandal book written about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans, almost as notorious as what Universal faced with Waterworld a decade earlier.

Thankfully Jon Favreau is a more dedicated craftsman with integrity, so Iron Man won't be needing any reboots.

One of the reasons Superman Returns is considered a flop and Batman Begins a hit is because Superman cost a lot more to make.

Oh, and because it sucked like few movies have ever sucked in the history of suckdom.

If there was a SuckCity, Superman Returns would be Mayor.

If we're talking about Superman Returns, I though Brandon Routh was the least of that film's problems. It just isn't that fun to watch and the more I would see it (bits on TV, DVD, etc.), the less I'd like it. someday, someone will write the definitve story of what a clusterfrak of a production this movie was (cough, Jon Peters) and all the directors and writers who were attached to it (Burton, Ratner, McG, JJ Abrams, ad nauseum). I wonder if the budget was so high because WB also tacked on the cost of all the failed Superman projects throughout the 90s (similar to what Paramount did with the first Star Trek film).

As for Smallville, someday I hope they produce a Superman film and actually shoot it in the US, instead of the UK and Canada (the first film), the UK exclusively (the sequels), or Australia (Returns).

Is it really an apt comparison to compare a reboot of a slasher film with a big budget superhero reboot? The two genres couldn't be any more different.

(continued)

I think that one of the real problems with modern remakes is that their creation tends to be much more cynical than people realize. Take the reboot/remake of Starsky and Hutch. That move is a classic example of the purely cynical use of an old brand name to sell a movie. What does that movie have to do with the original Starsky and Hutch? Nothing in the storyline, that's for sure. The movie was just a typical cop/buddy comedy done in the style of your average Ben Stiller movie. The Starsky and Hutch elements were basically just laid over the movie to trick the audience into thinking that this was actually a Starsky and Hutch remake. It's like they wrote the movie and then said, hey let's change the names to Starsky and Hutch to bring in that audience! If you changed the names of the characters to Smith and Johnson, but kept the rest of the movie the same, I doubt that very many people would have picked up on the fact that there was any connection to Starsky and Hutch.

(continued)

That said, I think that one of the real problems with modern remakes is that their creation tends to be much more cynical than people realize. Take the reboot/remake of Starsky and Hutch. That move is a classic example of the purely cynical use of an old brand name to sell a movie. What does that movie have to do with the original Starsky and Hutch? Nothing in the storyline, that's for sure. The movie was just a typical cop/buddy comedy done in the style of your average Ben Stiller movie. The Starsky and Hutch elements were basically just laid over the movie to trick the audience into thinking that this was actually a Starsky and Hutch remake. It's like they wrote the movie and then said, hey let's change the names to Starsky and Hutch to bring in that audience! If you changed the names of the characters to Smith and Johnson, but kept the rest of the movie the same, I doubt that very many people would have picked up on the fact that there was any connection to Starsky and Hutch.

Compare that to the Brady Bunch movie or the Addams Family Movies, both of which were done with a real warmth for their source material.

I believe the Roland Emmerich version of Godzilla was more a remake/reboot of "Beast from 20,000 Fathoms"
than Godzilla. As a Beast type movie I thought it was pretty good but as a godzilla movie it made me wonder
if they had actually watched any of the original Ishirô Honda Godzilla movie.

Mas – you doing movies now too? I thought all that talk was baloney about the movie theatres? Do you really own them? Where? Good luck on the radio show!

I've gone back and forth on BSG. I did not like the changes they made initially, it felt like they went out of their way to insult the old show. Still, I gave the show a chance. At first, I thought the show was poorly done, but then the story line got better and better.. But I still found it hard to like the show because I never bought the acting. Human history tells us that even at our worst moments, people still find ways to adjust and even bring joy into their lives. Not these guys, every single one of the actors played the full one 100% depressed, ironic, near-suicidal role at all times.

Then I started having problems with the lack of payoffs as well. They were good at introducing neat ideas, they just never took them beyond the intro. For example, the cylons are made out as good guys and they have religion. The humans are basically evil, and atheist. Was this headed for some interesting statement on religion? Nope, they just moved on. Baltar goes from narcissistic j*rk to messiah setting up a clash between his cult and the government. That's just dropped too. Five main characters discover they're cylons, will this affect their behavior? Don't know, we moved on.

Does anyone remember Halle Berry's Catwoman? The studio completely did away with the source material that Selina Kyle is Catwoman & possesses no superhuman powers; she is literally a cat burglar in a costume. The studios have to remain true to the source material & build up from there. I also think too many directors are overwhelmed by CGI.

I am not thrilled about the Friday the 13th reboot. Jason has been a parody for some time; this movie changes nothing or move the character forward. He's a mindless killing machine.

[...] weekend, stretched by President’s Day on Monday, looks like another winner, with “Friday the 13th” from New Line Cinema and Paramount drawing predictions in the $34 [...]

Andrew, the biggest problem with the remake fad is the studios and actors want it both ways. They want the built-in audience, but they soon scrap everything that made the original popular in the first place for modern Hollywood cynicism, political correctness or just plain crudeness. Almost all the major remakes that failed, they all feature some sort of "refreshing" to make it more appealing. Dukes of Hazard, while not great art to begin with, was a fun series with its own set of morals and bases set. Hollywood sees that, turns it into an adult comedy, then wonder why fans and even cast members of the original thought it was a steaming pile of suck.

Remade or rebooted, it's depressing that Americans are so endlessly entertained by extreme violence.