Remake
I was asked recently if there is a film that I would like to remake if I could. It is a great question. And I have multiple answers.
Just recently I was thinking about how the 2002 film Reign of Fire that co-starred Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey and was about a post-apocalyptic world overrun with dragons was such a (pun absolutely intended) misfire. Granted I haven’t re-watched it since it was originally released fifteen years ago, but it just seems like there has to be a much better film to be culled from that premise and heck even bring back the two leads, give them a better script and some great supporting cast. Effects certainly could be done better these days, too.
I have always had a fondness for New Line Cinema’s other big horror film franchise from the 80s/90s - Critters - and have long dreamed of remaking/rebooting it with today’s technology while keeping the campy charm and fun of the original.
There are two lighthearted romantic comedies with very similar plots that I have always wanted to make a new version of: the 1941 film Come Live With Me starring Jimmy Stewart & Hedy Lamarr and The Valet, a 2006 French film starring Gad Elmaleh & Kristin Scott Thomas. Both films use a fake relationship of mismatched lovers as a central plot point. I think they are both quite charming films that could be updated for modern audiences.
And lastly, this is not technically a remake in the same way the Coen Brothers didn’t technically remake True Grit but rather just made a new (and better) film adapted from the same source material, but I would like make a film based on the novel The Graduate by Charles Webb. I know it sounds like sacrilege, and I mean no disrespect to Mike Nichols’ masterpiece of film released in the late 1960s, but I was give a copy of the novel as an 18th birthday present from my parents. I loved the book, not necessarily more than the film, but differently as the book is quite different in many ways from the classic movie. There is a popular and very well done stage play that is based more on the film than the book, so I think a new film using elements from the book that haven’t been used yet is very possible.
Actually I have one more idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while. And I would like to do it as a stage play or a film. It would be another adaptation of the play Miss Firecracker Contest by Beth Henley. Thomas Schlamme directed a very good film version starring Holly Hunter back in the late 80s, but my idea is take the central character - a flamboyant, free-spirited young woman in a small Southern town who decides to enter a beauty pageant despite being looked down up by most of the community - and make the character trans. I know it would take a few small tweaks here and there, and would only do it by working with input from trans performers, but I think the source material is very well suited to idea.
Just recently I was thinking about how the 2002 film Reign of Fire that co-starred Christian Bale and Matthew McConaughey and was about a post-apocalyptic world overrun with dragons was such a (pun absolutely intended) misfire. Granted I haven’t re-watched it since it was originally released fifteen years ago, but it just seems like there has to be a much better film to be culled from that premise and heck even bring back the two leads, give them a better script and some great supporting cast. Effects certainly could be done better these days, too.
I have always had a fondness for New Line Cinema’s other big horror film franchise from the 80s/90s - Critters - and have long dreamed of remaking/rebooting it with today’s technology while keeping the campy charm and fun of the original.
There are two lighthearted romantic comedies with very similar plots that I have always wanted to make a new version of: the 1941 film Come Live With Me starring Jimmy Stewart & Hedy Lamarr and The Valet, a 2006 French film starring Gad Elmaleh & Kristin Scott Thomas. Both films use a fake relationship of mismatched lovers as a central plot point. I think they are both quite charming films that could be updated for modern audiences.
And lastly, this is not technically a remake in the same way the Coen Brothers didn’t technically remake True Grit but rather just made a new (and better) film adapted from the same source material, but I would like make a film based on the novel The Graduate by Charles Webb. I know it sounds like sacrilege, and I mean no disrespect to Mike Nichols’ masterpiece of film released in the late 1960s, but I was give a copy of the novel as an 18th birthday present from my parents. I loved the book, not necessarily more than the film, but differently as the book is quite different in many ways from the classic movie. There is a popular and very well done stage play that is based more on the film than the book, so I think a new film using elements from the book that haven’t been used yet is very possible.
Actually I have one more idea that I’ve been kicking around for a while. And I would like to do it as a stage play or a film. It would be another adaptation of the play Miss Firecracker Contest by Beth Henley. Thomas Schlamme directed a very good film version starring Holly Hunter back in the late 80s, but my idea is take the central character - a flamboyant, free-spirited young woman in a small Southern town who decides to enter a beauty pageant despite being looked down up by most of the community - and make the character trans. I know it would take a few small tweaks here and there, and would only do it by working with input from trans performers, but I think the source material is very well suited to idea.
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