“Enemy of the State” is already basically a thematic sequel/update to “The Conversation” but I think a remake of that classic today would be quite powerful. Of course, the original film is more a study of Gene Hackman’s character and less about the listening, but I think it would be really cool and timely.
A Chorus Line - it was a fantastic stage musical and totally ruined in every respect on the screen. Any episode of Glee is better than that crap film turned out to be.
Janet Evanovich’s series of books are really quite funny and good - probably better suited to a TV series on HBO, but that film “One For The Money” with Katherine Heigl was horrid.
I would agree with the poster above who said Watership Down deserves a good remake…
Booo. 2011’s “The Thing” was a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter film, not a remake.
Plus, it’s hard to improve on a movie that was that well done (and well adapted from the original story) in the first place.
I think a faithful "Starship Troopers"adaptation of some kind could be really cool, especially if the effects are done right, and they keep the story, including Johnny’s class time with Col. Dubois.
I think he meant Carpenter did a terrific remake of THE THING FROM ANOTHER WORLD from back in the '50s.
7 Faces of Dr. Lao
Lord of the Rings. A great saga like that deserves that some people with talent make a great movie out of it.
:rolleyes:
The 1982 movie was a remake of the 1951 original.
Which was a remake of Some Like It Hot.
At least, the end of it.
“A man by the name of Noah once saved our world with an ark of wood. Here at the North Pole, a few men performed a similar service with an arc of electricity.”
Watchmen, done as a 12-episode mini-series.
Any of the Travis McGee novels; they haven’t gotten a seriously high-quality treatment.
Anyone calling for a remake of Harry Potter or Lord of the Rings, exactly what do you think you would get from a remake that you didn’t get from those movies?
Seriously, it doesn’t make sense. Wah, wah, no Tom Bombadil, and that means the movies should be remade? But how could any real-world remake, with real actors and real directors and real money-men and real marketing campaigns, create your ideal vision?
A remake of “The Wizard of Oz” that conformed to my ideal vision could not be made in 2013, and will never be made unless somehow the Hollywood juggernaut changes direction. A remake made today would be a 3-D action movie with lots of fart jokes.
You’re not going to see a remake of Lord of the Rings with less comedy relief, less frenetic action sequences, less girls kicking ass, less characters and situations created out of thin air, and so on. Unless you think the problem with LOTR is that it didn’t have enough of that sort of thing, and you wanted more skateboarding Legolas and more dwarves getting kicked in the balls, and Adam Sandler playing Gandalf.
I watched it again recently and the effects were the best thing about it. I think a modern CGI affair would be far blander. Keep the old effects and write a better script and get better actors would be a better call. 
Quiet you! He’ll hear you! Then the next thing you know, not only will Sandler be Gandalf, he’ll also be Frodo and Galadriel, and Rob Schneider will be playing Gollum.
Even the commercials for the recent LES MISERABLES movie were more enjoyable than the entire Liam Neeson film from the '90s.
Or Jack Black. (NSFW)
Harlan Ellison already did this, as I said., in a Citizen kane-like format. The screenplay has been published. Illustrated, even, which shows how it could look with good CGI.
I think Bombadil is a fine exclusion from the films. I think also they did a great job in casting, including the landscape.
I think the movies fail in their adaptation of the characters and of the plot. As long as it follows the books it works out. But when they deviate it’s problematic. The characters are flattened or changed. Faramir becomes Boromir, the tragic Denethor becomes some hungry guy, Gimli becomes the comic relief, Gollum becomes a person with split personality disorder, Treebeard became a clueless dolt.
When the plot deviates from the book it is either confusingly pointless (wolf rider attack on Aragorn), or annoyingly idiotic (Gandalf saying that they shouldn’t defend themselves in Helms Deep, Aragorn beheading the messenger.)
I also don’t think I get a sufficiently good sense of how vast middle earth is, and how different the different parts are. Rohan feels more like a small village a little ways from the Shire, not a distant and fascinating kingdom.
A number of years ago (probably about 10 or so) my writing/directing partner at the time and I were pitching the idea of a Babe-like live-action version. The guy who owns the movie rights (it wasn’t Richard Adams - and I have no idea if that same guy still owns the rights today) was notoriously picky and had a reputation for being a bit of curmudgeon. We managed to get a phone conversation with him, and he seemed to like us and it seemed to go well, but that was the last we heard from him.
But I agree, I would still love to see this done someday, even if I don’t get to do it.
Good Bob, I didn’t think anyone would think otherwise!
A friend of mine is working on an updated script for El Cid. Hopefully, if it sells, they can hire a Spanish actor for the lead role, rather than Charleton Heston.