Movies that COULD stand a rebooting

[jackdavinci]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Not true. Only 11 of Dick’s novels are public domain. […] 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.

I actually did say “stories”. How many of his non-novels are in the public domain? How many of the short stories made into film are in the public domain?

[joebuck20]

@BrainGlutton

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.

That’s the one I came in here to mention. I actually like the 1987 film for what it is, which is a goofy, over-the-top, Reagan-era action flick. But, I too would like to see a faithful adaptation of the King story, which would be especially evocative in today’s world of reality TV and dumbed down political punditry.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@jackdavinci

I actually did say “stories”. How many of his non-novels are in the public domain? How many of the short stories made into film are in the public domain?

Sorry, I listed The Variable Man as a novel. It’s actually a short story collection, but I’m not sure if the contents are all PD or just that story. Stories are

“The Variable Man”
“Second Variety”
“The Minority Report”
“Autofac”
“A World of Talent”

Another story that has been movie-ized is “Imposter”, which appeared in Dick’s first hardcover book, A Handful of Darkness in 1955, but AFAIK it isn’t in the PD.

[Fried_Dough_Ho]

I could see something like The Ghost and Mrs. Muir being good fodder for a rebooot.

I’d love to see a more architecturally-themed version of The Fountainhead.

The Man In The White Suit could be well-suited to an intelligent comedian (not Jim Carrey).

Bell, Book and Candle is rife for a Nora Ephron re-working.

Seven Days In May would make for a great, modern political thriller.

In the same vein as pondering modern technology, I’d like to see a cutting edge version of Three Days of the Condor.

[Czarcasm]

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The special effects were crappy, Fred Ward was too stocky to play Remo, Brimley was the exact opposite of how Harold Smith was described in the books, and where the hell was Shiva?

[Silent_Kal]

@GuanoLad

The Last Starfighter could easily be updated, especially now that video games are more elaborate.

I’d keep it an arcade machine. This would ironically give the game an added sense of uniqueness and mystery, as opposed to being just another console game. Would teenagers of today even have played a stand-up arcade game before?

Wiki says a remake/sequel (with Lance Guest returning, even) was announced in 2008. Anyone know if it’s still in the works?

[alice_in_wonderland]

I always thought a remake of The Birds with improved graphics would be kind of awesome, as long as they didn’t mess with the story.

[Larry_Mudd]

@alice_in_wonderland

I always thought a remake of The Birds with improved graphics would be kind of awesome, as long as they didn’t mess with the story.

Not impressed with the prequel idea, then?

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

@BrainGlutton

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.

This is the one I was going to choose. The book is actually pretty good, and the Arnold movie has nothing to do with it.

Glenn Beck should play the Games Network producer.

[Tom_Scud]

@palindromemordnilap

“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 script was apparently written with Richard Dreyfuss in mind. Which would have been somewhat different.

[Diogenes_the_Cynic]

This one’s kind of off the wall, but a favorite of mine when I was a kid: King Kong vs. Godzilla.

[Anonymous_Coward]

@Czarcasm

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The special effects were crappy, Fred Ward was too stocky to play Remo, Brimley was the exact opposite of how Harold Smith was described in the books, and where the hell was Shiva?

Plans for a new movie were announced in 2009 according to Wikipedia.

[joebuck20]

@Diogenes_the_Cynic

This is the one I was going to choose. The book is actually pretty good, and the Arnold movie has nothing to do with it.

Glenn Beck should play the Games Network producer.

I’m not a fan of his, but I have to say this actually sounds like a pretty good casting choice. It’d also be kind of fun to see him ham it up in that role.

[Sampiro]

@alice_in_wonderland

I always thought a remake of The Birds with improved graphics would be kind of awesome, as long as they didn’t mess with the story.

Ooh, good one. That movie is still scary (my sister has a phobia of birds to this day she credits to that one) and it’d be awesome if they had realistic CGI.

[UncleRojelio]

@Czarcasm

Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins. The special effects were crappy, Fred Ward was too stocky to play Remo, Brimley was the exact opposite of how Harold Smith was described in the books, and where the hell was Shiva?

Then Doc Savage as well.

[GargoyleWB]

@aruvqan

…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 think it’s the opposite. Mainstream movies now are sanitized and stripped of risque content to try and target the largest audience demographic possible. It used to be you could guarantee boobies and cursing spicing up any major-market movie in the 70s/80s. Now, even John McClane (Die Hard) isn’t allowed to swear anymore and skin is confined to indie or second-tier market films.

[aruvqan]

@UncleRojelio

Then Doc Savage as well.

I wish they had played Doc Savage straight instead of comic.

Now if they would remake it as hardboiled steampunk noir, that would work. Serious not comic.

[Deeg]

@palindromemordnilap

“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.

Absolutely! I remember looking forward to this (I’m a PKD fan) and it was so disappointing. I always thought that it was ruined by casting Arnold and turning it into a shoot-em-up instead of the brainy story that it was.

[Capitaine_Zombie]

@GuanoLad

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.

Oh maaaaan The Last Starfighter and Condorman, always thought the last place on Earth where you’d find those two together would be my head.
Funny how I always misremembered the Last Starfighter and for me the story stopped when he’s abducted and realizes there are hundreds of other alien “heroes” like him. For me the film should have stopped there. Honestly if I had to do a remake of the Last Starfighter i would still put it in the early eighties. We had a special relationship with those crude arcade games back then that can hardly be displaced in time.

[BrainGlutton]

@aruvqan

I wish they had played Doc Savage straight instead of comic.

Now if they would remake it as hardboiled steampunk noir, that would work. Serious not comic.

Nitpick: You mean dieselpunk.