So I was thinking… wouldn’t it be interesting to not winkingly cheese everything up, and instead, to take the plot completely, utterly seriously in this flick?
I don’t know why “remakes” almost always go for the cheese.
In fact, I can’t think of a single tv-to-movie “remake” that didn’t turn the original into a cornball comedy. (Can you?)
Even in cases where the original was corny, intentionally or not, the “remake” has outcorned the corn. I’m thinking, for example, of My Favorite Martian. What they should have done with that was make some kind of utterly believable, almost serious flick about the Martian and the human from the TV show as they might be today, having lived as friends on Earth for forty or so years. The fact that the martian has literal metal antennae could take on, in this context, an almost darkly comic absurdist tone in its presentation.
I recognize the entertainment and artistic value of subverting the original show in a “remake” in some way, but does it have to be through the conversion of the show into a puffball of corn? Why can’t we “subvert” the old shows by making them believable in a contemporary idiom. (Thereby subverting whatever presuppositions underlie the original works which constitute them as, for us today, somehow cheesey or unbelievable.) That could be clever and interesting!
I think such a treatment might be interesting for Dallas as well, though the original wasn’t meant to be funny AFAIK. But I’m guessing it will be cheesy and corny and will play everything for laughs.
Next, there are two things I’d like to say: #1–I watched and enjoyed MY Favorite Martian, yeah, cheesy at times, pretty much a Beverly Hillbillies schtick, but a good show. I once read a comic book on the pilot plot, and the last scene had him (the Martian: Ray Walston) looking up at Mars while a tear trickled down his cheek. Awesome, and probably the only time in history the comix outdid a series. The dude had issues. #2–As for the crapola out there, I just say: Suits. The freaking suits. They could screw up a wet dream.
I wonder if that comic is available anywhere with any ease. It sounds like the comic kind of (re)envisions the idea of the series in a way similar to the one I’ve suggested.
(Also, BTW, isn’t the guy that played the Martian still alive, and isn’t he a decent actor? He could play the role himself!)
I don’t know about anyone else, but I am sick to death of these movie remakes of old 80s shows. Just let them die already - please. I didn’t see the Dukes of Hazzard movie, I’m not seeing Miami Vice, and I’m not seeing Dallas, either. Certainly there’s new ideas out there.
What’s next? Magnum P.I., Airwolf, and MacGuyver movies?
I got some inside poop on the Dukes of Hazzard movie. There will likely be a “sequel.” Sort of.
Hollywood history may be made. They plan to wait a few years to let the miscast/badly-scripted movie fade into the overflowing sea embarrassing Hollywood mistakes. Then they will re-cast the movie with more appropriate actors, and completely disregard the 2005 movie. So it’s a sequel in title only, but will actually be more of a remake of the series, disregarding the horrible mistake in hiring the Broken Lizard morons to make the first one.
This will probably be the first time a Hollywood studio openly ate crow.
Absolutely. What the hell is going on in Hollywood? Doesn’t anyone write original screenplays for the movies? Who green lights this shit?
I know it’s all about money. I know Fanboy/girl X loves it when their favorite comic book, cartoon, or TV series comes to the big screen, but that only encourages them to make more of this shit.
I don’t think I’m a movie snob. Well, yes, wait, I am. I see movies very infrequently. They’re almost always documentaries. And I tend to go to the artsy theatre. But I’m not above seeing some good ol’ fashioned ass-kicking on the big screen. What I won’t do, though, is see something that’s been done before.
Occasionally I flip channels and catch Dallas reruns on CMT, I think. It’d be one thing if they tried to do what they did on that Dallas reunion show - pick up where they left off. This a.m. I saw an article saying that J.Lo is in the running for the role of Sue Ellen. On one hand, I am all for seeing people of color in headlining roles. But Sue Ellen wasn’t Latina. She was a White country gal. To make this work they would need J.Lo to play the role as it was intended (slightly offensive) or as she is - which would complicate matters significantly. Because there’s that whole issue of being the scion of a big Texas oil family marrying a Latina in the 1980s. It would have to be in the storyline or it wouldn’t ring true… then, of course, you’ve got a different movie altogether.
And don’t forget, we have to have the original cast in some cameo in the flick. So fucking predictable, and so fucking lame. I have a feeliing the shitty box office receipts in recent years have way more to do with the dreck they keep pumping out than DVDs, movie piracy, and that other stuff. In fact, the last two theatrical releases I was were Vera Drake and Millions. Original movies!
Arguably the Lost in Space movie took this tack. It presented itself as understanding the premise of the original series but was actually a stand-alone move that could have been on anyone’s radar as a serious pic.
The problem is that for some reason costs for movies has skyrocketed while box office has stayed the same. Therefore movie studios go for safer bets as movie failures when you’re dishing out 100 million plus to make them can be incredibly costly.
As for why they’re going up in costs so much, my hunch is inflated salaries all around. Most of my favourite movies were made for fractions of what movies are these days, with similiar (for the times they were made) kinds of special effects, and I’m not talking about dramas either.
Aliens cost 35 million dollars in todays money. That’s less than is given to B-movies these days.
Star Wars cost 41 million.
Empire Strikes back 45 million.
Raiders of the Lost Ark 45 million.
These are adjusted btw, if you payed everyone in todays money, that’s how much it would cost to make those movies today.
For some of todays movies, that’s about the budget for 2 actors, if they’re stars.
Fun with Dick and Jane cost 100 million. Attack of the Clones 115 million. The latest Harry Potter movie, 150 million.
I recall seeing a few episodes of this old soap opera. anyway: did JR die? Who inherited the family fortune? Or did the IRS throw them all in jail and confiscate Southfork? And JR’s nemesis (I think his name was cliff something)-what happened to him?
Just a guess, but I am betting they don’t make the new re-make cheesy for laughs, unless they make it a 70’s period piece with those newfangled cordless phones with the hugeass antenna.
The soap plot was always fairly evil and serious, with the occasional wink of humor, but for the most part, J.R. was the guy to hate and plots were made and plots were foiled. They would be stupid to do it as a tongue-in-cheek, as if there were ever a film that could have a sequel or two, this is it. People in the US forget that Dallas was a mega-hit around the world. So even if the film makes only 10 cents in the US, it is bound to make a bundle world-wide.
Yes, Hollywood has screwed up about 99.9% of all TV shows to films remakes, but I don’t think the movie Dallas will intentionally be made for cheap laughs…it might turn out that way, but I seriously doubt that will be the writers’/producers intentions. And the cast, other than maybe JLo, seems to be fairly decent.
My guess would be either Punky Brewster as a Sir Ian McKellen/Elle Fanning vehicle, Murder She Wrote with Dame Judi Dench as Jessica Fletcher or Gimme a Break as another Halle Berry/Billy Bob Thornton project.
Rather than box them (since it’s for a long dead show) I’ll just say SPOILER ALERT here:
The last episode of the series featured Joel Grey (Hagman’s real life best friend) as a demonic spin on Clarence in It’s a Wonderful Life- he shows J.R. how much better the world would have been had he never been born. The show ends with an already depressed and on the verge of ruin J.R. looking in a mirror, firing a gun, the camera cuts away to Bobby looking in and saying “Oh my God!”
A few years later there was a TV reunion movie in which Bobby said something about J.R. going nuts a few years ago and shooting a mirror. However, he’s back to his old tricks now, embezzles $200 million from his son’s trust fund, etc… Miss Ellie (Barbara Bel Geddes, who died last year) did not appear in the reunion movies but most of the original cast did [I don’t think Charlene Tilton was asked]).
The guy who played Cliff Barnes was Ken Kercheval, who stupidly didn’t learn from the "NEVER PUT YOUR OWN MONEY IN THE SHOW! rule or the Never Put Everything You Have Left into one investment rule. He produced some stage and screen projects that tanked without ever being released and he sank more of his money into a popcorn venture that also tanked and was on the “See the celebrity eat a bug for $2” tour a few years ago. Hopefully the reunion movies helped him get a trailer or something.