I think METROPOLIS could benefit from a rebooting; tell the story of a future dystopia with subterranean and scraper dwelling characters and modern special effects and screenwriting and include the silent on the DVD release of the remake and I think it would have the potential to be cool. While rebooting Fritz Lang, the Doctor Mabuse movies could also be rebooted with a more modern setting; he could remain German and somehow tie in the Nazis (set in the 1970s perhaps with him as a Spandau-like captive criminal and former SS occultist).
I think either the Gidget and Tammy movies- one or the other- could be a cash-cow (I won’t say high quality) movie- a series centered on a teenager but with more modern sensibilities and realism but still a comedy. Clueless got a huge audience and I was always surprised they didn’t follow Cher into sequeldom.
I’ve seen a couple versions of Metropolis, I liked the one with the Giorgio Moroder-Queen soundtrack! Did you watch Metropolis on TCM last night? It was a very good print, but OMG how very, very dated, even for a silent movie.
I think Gidget is pretty much a period piece and should stay that way, but Tammy has real possibilities. I’d like to see Tammy rebooted.
There are others I’ve thought of, can’t remember now, will be back…
I’ve always thought “Wolf” with Jack Nicholson and (as I recall) Michelle Pfeiffer was a missed opportunity. The idea of a werewolf using his…condition…to climb the corporate ladder had all kinds of possibilities. Whatever the actual movie was about, it wasn’t about that.
“Total Recall” had a generally good story but it got lost in the muck. Instead a Philip K. Dick-inspired paranoid fantasy/reality, we got a by-the-numbers Scharzenegger action flick. Every time the movie built up a little good will they’d squander it on some ill-advised special effects or yet another chase scene. It needed a different actor, too.
The Blade franchise. Blade Trinity killed it, but a solid 4th film could easily resurrect it again. Snipes might be too old now to pull it off, tho. Prolly need some new guy to fill the role.
There is a current project with the title of Metropolis on IMDB, but I don’t have pro, so I cant see the details. Unfortunately they will fuck it up unbearably.
They actually made Dr Mabuse all the way from silent through the early 70s …
Please keep in mind the charm of many of the old movies is their innocence, Tammy fucking the football player on the beach is not going to be anywhere as charming as the gang having a cookout [with implied necking] I have seen no remakes of movies with the exception of Cabinet of Dr Caligari that was an exact shot for shot reproduction that I would spend any money to go see, and wouldn’t waste my time watching them on television. Modern idiot hollywierd seems to thing throwing blatant sex and obscenity into a movie is what ‘modernizes it’ and makes it a big box office draw.
I always thought that TV Cher was a lot better than movie Cher, so I was glad for that development.
Anyways, since they are making a video game that will be a canon sequel, I’d expect that any movie sequel would be CGI. And whoever is voicing Marty in the video games could probably voice him in the movie.
And I believe Christopher Lloyd is voicing Doc Brown, as are many of the other original actors.
Highlander, as mentioned in one of the threads for it, needs a remake.
Hire actors who want to be there (ie, no Connery). Write a script where there’s more ‘things happen and people talk’ and less ‘we drift along watching pretty images of the Scottish Highlands’.
Get rid of the concept of The Gathering - the Game is ongoing, There Can Be Only One is a vague future goal of those who take the game seriously, not so much an immediate imperative.
Play up the personal grudge between the Kurgan and Connor to drive the plot, instead of the Game. Spend a bit more time on flashbacks to their histories, both individual and as enemies.
Stuff to keep, aside from the basic ideas and characters:
Keep the Queen soundtrack. Hire Clancy Brown, if he’s willing - he looks too old to pull off the Kurgan, now, but he could make a good Ramirez.
I’d like to see The Running Man done as a faithful adaptation of King’s/Bachman’s novel. Yes, including the lefty-Boomer political messages. Yes, including the final scene, fuck 'em.
The Last Starfighter could easily be updated, especially now that video games are more elaborate.
The Rocketeer got a short shrift last time, and needs to be restarted and given a proper franchise potential. Actually, it’s probably adaptable into an affordable 13 episode cable TV series.
And here’s one I’d love to write/make myself: Condorman, the story of a comic book artist who gets a chance to be the superspy he draws.
Yes, but, I got the impression that the only reason so many Dick stories are greenlighted for film in the first place are because they are accidently prematurely in the public domain…
Not true. Only 11 of Dick’s novels are public domain.
[ol]Beyond Lies the Wub
[li]Beyond the Door[/li][li]The Crystal Crypt[/li][li]The Defenders[/li][li]The Eyes Have It[/li][li]The Gun[/li][li]Mr. Spaceship[/li][li]Piper in the Woods[/li][li]Second Variety[/li][li]The Skull[/li][li]The Variable Man[/ol][/li]
They are all available for e-readers at Project Gutenberg. This is approximately 1/4 of his novels, although to date none of these has been made into a film.
Only 3 of his novels have been adapted for film (Blade Runner, A Scanner Darkly, and Confessions of a Crap Artist). It’s Dick’s short stories that have provided the basis for quite a few films. 9 of approximately 121 short stories have been turned into films.
Someday, I hope to see Ubik on screen. But not directed by Richard Linklater. In fact, I’d prefer if he just stayed away from directing altogether. Perhaps he and Tim Burton could be persuaded to retire to some tropical island paradise, preferably just before monsoon season.
Agreed. The King story is much better than the movie, which seemed to be more an exhibition of tough guys’ skills than an adaptation of the story. In the story, Ben Richards is a poor man trying to provide for his family using the Games; why did the filmmakers transform Richards into a cop unjustly accused of firing on a crowd? And what is with the chute into an ice rink, etc?