Anything Worth Doing Is Worth Doing Twice
In that spirit, what movies would you actually like to see remade?
Reasons to do a remake (apart from “because we’re scared to take a chance on something new”) would include: to reach a bigger, English-speaking audience; to retell a classic story in a contemporary idiom; to take advantage of advances in technology; to serve as the perfect vehicle for a particular star; to get it right this time; etc.
My off-the-top-of-my-head suggestions:
Bread and Chocolate – set it in California, practically writes itself; only problem is Cheech Marin is too old to star.
Guys and Dolls – one of the best American musicals, terrible movie; maybe cast Sky Masterson with somebody who can sing this time? (George Clooney? And Will Smith in the Sinatra role!)
The Great Train Robbery – “Oceans Eleven” meets “Sherlock Holmes.”
Late Marriage – deserves a bigger audience, wouldn’t suffer from being moved to, say, Brighton Beach. Halle Berry as the love interest? Or does that turn it into “Jungle Fever?” Or is that a good thing?
Your suggestions?
“…to retell a classic story in a contemporary idiom…”
I’d like to see Cool Hand Luke set in today’s prison system. Is there anyone who could pull off Paul Newman’s part? On the other hand, hello Gary Busey comeback vehicle…
— Conor Friedersdorf · Jan 27, 06:58 AM · #
I would pay a pricely sum to see McG’s Last Year At Marienbad, as there is no way that could fail to be the worst movie of all time. But then, I saw Love Guru in theaters. Twice.
Otherwise, it would be nice for someone who actually understood the source material to take a run at Beloved.
— Erik Siegrist · Jan 27, 07:47 AM · #
I’m gagging for a remake of “Sweet Smell of Success”, updated to today’s tabloid culture. George Clooney or Robert Downey could play the Burt Lancaster role (I briefly considered Kevin Spacey but he’s too smarmy).. and Christian Slater in the Tony Curtis role because he has just the right amount of sleazy desperation. Downey could pull that one off too…
Soderbergh would direct
— Ziad · Jan 27, 11:40 AM · #
Love the Guys and Dolls idea, but can Clooney sing? Why not go with Broadway vet Hugh Jackman?
The Magnificent Seven, transplanting seven of Ocean’s Eleven (Clooney, Pitt, Damon, Cheadle, Caan, Affleck and Gould would be my choices), but dark — directed by Christopher Nolan.
“Touch of Evil,” set amidst today’s anti-immigrant paranoia, with Robbie Coltrane in the Welles role.
— Chris in NF · Jan 27, 02:53 PM · #
These are all good suggestions except maybe for remaking Touch of Evil, which is too much of a classic to fool with. Just the other day I was thinking that a big budget remake of Sink the Bismarck would be a good idea. Although the original is excellent, the makers clearly didn’t have the budget to do proper battle scenes.
— Bruce Bartlett · Jan 27, 03:40 PM · #
While the movie adaptations of Nathaneal West’s “Day of the Locust” and “Miss Lonelyhearts” have their moments, either could rise to greatness in the hands of the Coens.
I’m with Bruce— definitely leave Touch of Evil alone. (Although if you had to do it, Coltrane would be a good substitute for Welles, with Kelsey Grammar as first alternate.)
— turnbuckle · Jan 27, 03:58 PM · #
Bad Day at Black Rock, because almost no one has seen it, and the actual movie wasn’t as good as the premise. Another reason is that it could be updated/reimagined in a number of ways.
— Mark Muller · Jan 27, 05:17 PM · #
Dragonslayer, directed by Cronenberg.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 27, 07:12 PM · #
The Ten Commandments, directed by Michael Bay and starring Dwayne Johnson as Moses.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 27, 07:20 PM · #
You know, I can’t tell if I’m serious about The Ten Commandments. We kind of deserve that movie, don’t we?
I’d also like to see Dune remade by Aronovsky.
The premise of Wargames — tech-smart teenager gets in over his head, becomes the centerpiece of an international thriller — updated to the present and directed by Paul Greengrass.
A remake of The Conversation, using the aerial voice-ID tech that we may or may not be using to find Taliban leaders in Afghanistan, kind of how Superman goes up to the stratosphere to listen to everybody. Maybe the the lab director at the private corp that produces the ‘Ear of God’ for DoD gets obsessed with using the tech for voyeuristic purposes, and undone by the knowledge he learns.
I’d like to see Don Juan redone, using Moliere’s Dom Juan as a benchmark for a nihilistic, God-tempting ruiner of human innocence, particularly of the female variety, except with no cathartic punishment at the end. Just the terrible indifference of this gaping and silent universe. Maybe Don Juan could be lobbyist for the Wall Street.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 27, 08:44 PM · #
Aronovsky and Lynch should have to swap. Aronovsky gets Dune, Lynch gets The Fountain.
— turnbuckle · Jan 27, 10:23 PM · #
Sex, Lies, and Flash Memory, staring Michael Cera as the quirky kid with ED who uses a Flip Mino to record evangelical virgins talking about what they think sex will be like when they get married. Instead of keeping them private, he uploads them to YouTube so everyone can laugh at life’s in-jokes and petty cruelties. Just kidding (I think).
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 28, 12:13 AM · #
Once last thing, promise. One thing I would really like to see is a remake of Network, with more sophistication, less 70s’ish excess. I’d also go for a more disciplined, less fluffy retread of Brazil.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 28, 12:36 AM · #
Surprised no one else has brought this up:
The 2nd Star Wars trilogy, just pretend Lucas’s versions don’t exist, hire a real writer and start over.
— Eric K · Jan 28, 01:53 AM · #
I can think of a slew of sci-fi movies that would benefit from a remake with a better script, director, actors, and special effects:
THE FINAL COUNTDOWN
CAPRICORN ONE
THE PHILADELPHIA EXPERIMENT
to name just three
— odgie · Jan 28, 01:59 AM · #
Right, Guys and Dolls. In general, remake musicals with great scores that weren’t done right the first time: the film version of “South Pacific,” for example, is a bore. The whole War-in-Tropical-Paradise theme that was huge in American popular culture for the first 25 years after the Pacific War has almost completely disappeared, so the setting would be fresh this time around.
— Steve Sailer · Jan 28, 02:38 AM · #
And then there are pretty good musicals that were done pretty good the first time, but the movies aren’t much remembered today: Pajama Game, Damn Yankees, Kiss Me Kate, Annie Get Your Gun, and so forth.
Cast them with young performers, change whatever you want in the plot, make them for under $20 million, and you’ve got something that can do good business with the underserved female audience. They have better scores than whatever anybody new will come up with for High School Musical IV. Nobody can write quality songs anymore.
Moreover, why not pastiche musicals like “Mamma Mia” where you write a story around the songs. I saw a very entertaining pastiche musical of Gershwin songs with Tommy Tune in the lead on Broadway in the 1980s. Take the best songs of Boys-2-Men or the Bee-Gees or Whitney Houston or whomever and weave them into some kind of story.
Or here’s one that just needs a “book:” take Twyla Tharp’s wonderful choreography for her modern dance piece “Nine Sinatra Songs” and write dialogue that ties them together. You start with 9 songs that everybody can hum the tunes of and great choreography. Write some decent dialogue and plot, Noah, and you’ve got the makings of the best musical of the decade.
— Steve Sailer · Jan 28, 02:54 AM · #
Noah:
Here are the Nine Sinatra Songs that Twyla Tharp choreographed:
Strangers in the Night, All the Way, That’s Life, My Way, One For My Baby (And One More for the Road), Softly As I Leave You, Something Stupid, Forget Domani
I’m not sure how to start, but the Act 2 finale has to be One for My Baby (And One More for the Road) and the Act 3 climax is All the Way.
— Steve Sailer · Jan 28, 03:07 AM · #
What am I thinking?! Nick Cage should be Moses.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 28, 04:11 AM · #
Turnankle, I don’t know. I think Lynch would take the Fountain and make it about some poor actress who’s daughter found a ring in a puddle behind the dumpster at the Rabbit family’s condo on Sunset Boulevard, after which, because of a shaky video she found of her mother doing a snuff film, which, of course, the girl found in her pocket after it was deposited by an extinct California Condor, the daughter becomes a tree transfixed to said puddle by roots of arteries and semen and shattered dreams, while her mother tries to raise money on the street for nitrogen fertilizer for the tree, while performing the monkey with brass cymbals dance in front of a pro forma standing ovation from a literally faceless crowd.
— Kristoffer V. Sargent · Jan 28, 04:56 AM · #
KVS, I think the Nick Cage as Moses idea is brilliant. He should play it in his “Peggy Sue Got Married” voice, though.
— Kate Marie · Jan 28, 06:08 AM · #
Mimino. Work in some of the more recent Georgia/Russia history, along with post-Soviet Moscow scenes. Don’t let Nikita Mikhalkov do it, though.
— Kino Reticulator · Jan 28, 07:30 AM · #
K. Victoria Sargent, that’s a Fountain I would eagerly Tivo. Semen and shattered dreams are staples of my own puddle.
— turnbuckle · Jan 28, 03:36 PM · #
Steve: Twyla Tharp’s Frank Sinatra Musical to Open Alliance Season, Tour, and Possibly Come to Broadway
I reiterate my advice that if you want to sell some books, write one about Hollywood.
— Noah Millman · Jan 28, 04:44 PM · #