Inspired by another thread, I was wondering, what movies would you like to remake yourself, or see remade? This could include old, great movies you think would be well served with modern production capabilities, or movies with potential you think they screwed up the first time. For instance:
“20,000 Leagues Under The Sea.” - A great, great movie, but imagine what you could do with it today. As long as you had a director and writer committed to producing more than a Disney effects extravaganza, this could be a hell of a remake.
“The Searchers” - Maybe the best Western ever made, but a little dated. I think you could really rework this movie into a much better movie. You’d need one hell of a director to match Ford, though.
20,000 LEAGUES was pretty well served a few years back by ABC with Michael Caine as Capt Nemo
Myself- I’d do the authentic Stoker’s DRACULA with a more dignified Quincey Morris, a more compassionate Arthur Holmwood,
a more tragic Renfield, a stronger J Harker & a more evil Dracula.
I think the Coppola version got Mina, Lucy, Van Helsing & Jack Seward exactly right.
Now possible casting-
Sean Connery as Dracula, tho Ralph Fiennes would do quite well-
the fellow who played Vlad in USA’s TV film DARK PRINCE wasn’t bad either.
Ah hell, I’d beg Chris Lee!
Max Von Sydow as Van Helsing
(tho having Lee in the role would be interesting)-
my first pick as AVH tho was Anthony Hopkins.
Renfield- Dennis Hopper, Christopher Lloyd, Brad Dourif, there are many good choices.
Nightfall – Isaac Asimov’s short story has been made twice by people who have no idea what they’re doing.
Arena – with CGI and proper plotting and script, you could make a masterpiece out of Fredric Brown’s heavily-copied (but never properly filmed) short story.
The Odessa File – while I liked much of this circa 1976 Jon Voight film, it departs from the Frederick Forsythe original novel. The Incredible Shrinking Man – just to clean up some of the poor optical effects in the film. It wasn’t their fault – they didn’t have the budget for state-of-the-art even in 1957. And you could do so much better today… Starship Troopers, The Relic, and dozens of others – it would be nicve if these films resembled the novels they were nominally based on, at least a little bit. Why bother to buy the rights if you completely rewrite the end product?
Blasphemy! The best Western and the fifth best film ever made ( says me, before you ask). Still, they remade Psycho and seriously considered Citizen Kane, so I suppose nothing’s sacred any more.
What I would like to see remade is Harry Potter and the Philosopher’s Stone, with a real director.
I agree, but I think we need a reasonable amount of time between the original and the remake.
And I didn’t mean to put down “The Searchers.” It was a masterpeice. But it’s a movie that would be interesting to do as a remake - there is POTENTIAL in a remake. There is no potential in remaking, say, “Jaws.” I can’t see how you could substantially improve that film.
And I would agree that “Citizen Kane” cannot be remade in any way that would make sense. The original was such a wonderful film because it broke new ground in cinema. You can’t break the same ground twice.
I would remake “Some Like it Hot” with Steven Segal and Carrottop. While I’m at it, I’ll redo “West Side Story” with Britney Spears and David Arquette.:rolleyes:
I would like to see a major production of MacBeth since the last semi-decent version of it came out in the 70’s; we’ve come a long way with special effects so they could actually do the parts with the witches now without it looking silly.
The last time I watched one of my favorite movies, I Walked with a Zombie, I imagined filming a tribute to the director, that would take the form of lovingly recreating every shot, every nuance, and slowing down and repeating some of the gestures he accomplished in the original. Needless to say, this would not be a film that would satisfy your typical filmgoer, but the process of making it would be rapturous for me. It made me understand a little better why Van Sant did Psycho the way he did.
Return of the Jedi, the Phantom Menace, and Attack of the Clones. As a star wars fan I would like for the first two movies to lead up to (back to) something better than this. There’s a good story in it, but I think it’s been largely botched.
I’d like to see a re-make of Fritz Lang’s * Metropolis * faithfully reproducing the expressionistic atmosphere of the film. I would NOT want to see it re-made as an action film. Of course, it’d be awfully hard to come with a script that would be reasonably faithful to the original and still appeal to modern audiences.
I’d also like to see a re-make of * Fahrenheit 451 *. Much as I respect Truffaut as a filmmaker, his film version of Bradbury’s classic novel was just too tepid. I also understand that the mechanical Hound was left out of Truffaut’s production for budget reasons. Since the story isn’t too heavy on special effects, even a modestly budgeted production could do a reasonably good job of the Hound with today’s special effects technology.
Since I have permission to daydream out loud, I’d like to see a decent production of Huxley’s * Brave New World. * There have been a couple of made-for-TV versions that sucked outrageously.
And I’d like to see * War of the Worlds * re-made, this time in its original setting of turn-of-the-20th-century Britain. George Pal’s version was very good for the period in which it was made and I really like it, but it’s long past time to do it over. Pal’s version of the Martian war machines is cool, but I want to see something more closely resembling Well’s concept of the war machines as walking tripods. I’d also like to see a script scrupulously faithful to the novel.
Ray Harryhausen was poised to do War of the Worls as a period piece before Pal made his version. It’s too bad - I would’ve loved to have seen that. His Tripods would have been stop-motio animated, and this is one case where the “strobing” of stop-motion contributes greatly to the overall effect – it makes things look roperly mechanical (See The Empire Strikes Back, where the At-At “Walkers” were stop-motion animated). I’ve seen a still of his Martians, too – it would’ve been vintage turn-of-the-century Wells, instead of updated Gene Barry.
I like remakes that do a different take on films that just weren’t quite right the first time, rather than redoing a popular classic or cult favorite. Flawed gems if you will.
Pulp - The Michael Caine movie from 1972 about a writer of softcore action/crime novels who gets tied up in an adventure like something out of one of his books. I liked the original (although most don’t), but feel the story has potential for an updated version.
Valdez Is Coming - The Burt Lancaster western from 1971 that dealt with racism in the Old West. Maybe they could use an actual Latino in the lead role this time, Benicio Del Toro would be good.
The Assassination Bureau - Play up the dark comedy elements of the original more and add some steampunk touches. Maybe Clive Owen or Rufus Sewell in the Oliver Reed role, Catherine Zeta-Jones for Diana Rigg’s role.
Though I’m 100% American, I think I speak for everyone in the UK when I say “U-571” should be re-done with a British cast. After all, the REAL mission was carried out by Brits, not by the likes of Matthew McConnaughey and Jon Bon Jovi.
I want to remake The Time Machine, and this time turn it into a good movie instead of that deplorable piece of Star Trek-wannabe tripe that got puked into theatres recently. Stay true to the original version, definitely… make the Morlocks scary, make the Eloi into semi-intelligent sub-humans, and show the rest of the Time Traveller’s (who shall remain nameless) excursions into the future… including the bleak vision of the FAR future where the planet is dying…
