Sure - cast Pamela Anderson and make it a sci-fi…
Almost on-topic.
I maintain we have no movie stars at the moment who could make a “Schwarzenegger movie.” It is hard to imagine any name-brand modern movie star who could star in Commando or Conan the Barbarian.
All of our movie stars are getting old, even Tom Hanks, who I still think of as the new guy. It is past time for a new crop to come up.
Carry on. Sorry to interrupt.
Jason Momoa?
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson?
People always say The Rock and Vin Diesel but are they in A Tier Action movies? Almost all of their action movies seem like they have a bunch of other big names to draw people in as opposed to Arnold or Stallone who could carry a movie by themselves. Jason Statham, Gerald Butler and Liam Neeson are the “modern” action stars in an Arnold sense where the movie poster just seems to have them on it solo.
On a technicality, Chris Hemsworth.
I would say The Rock is; the other names no.
The Rock persona that Dwayne Johnson has more charisma than all the other names you mentioned combined. He has an aura of a cultural icon around the levels of John Wayne and Bruce Lee.
Yes, yes, they are. No-one’s watching the Fast & the Furious movies for motherfucking Ludacris.
Keanu Reeves.
I mean, he’s physically wrong for Conan, obviously, but he’s probably the world’s greatest working action star, and the only one who can open a big-budget movie by himself.
I would like to see the Jason Momoa version of Conan the Barbarian re-made, with the same actors, but a better script. One with less sorcery, and more swords. One where the climactic duel between two mighty sorceresses doesn’t end up as a catfight.
I agree. Momoa has the potential to deliver a more accurate portrayal of the character than Arnie - the Conan of the Robert E. Howard stories can actually be quite cheerful and talkative.
Mustn’t forget Troll II. That cannot be improved upon.
I never saw the original, but would The LEGO Movie work as live-action?
Everything would not be awesome…
…
(Do see the original, it’s so much fun)
Heh. You know, that song is probably my favorite in the Garfunkel and Oates catalogue.
No. Really no. The fact that they’re LEGO is entirely the point of the movie. Plus that scene where Emmet uses his head as a wheel would be weird beyond belief in live action.
Conversely, I don’t recall much from the non-live bits of the Playmobil film that couldn’t be done live (other than the fact the whole point is that they’re Playmobil figures). I mean, it was a tepid film to begin with and there would be no reason to remake it as live action, but you could.
I’d like to see The Incredible Shrinking Man remade, now that CGI is available to make the effects good, and we have advanced to the point of treating adult themes.
The original film was literally a “B” movie – a term which really describes the size of the budget and marketing, and not a judgment about the quality of the film. A long-ago article in the New York Times listed it as among the best of the B-movies. This is true, but it also meant that the effects weren’t even state-of-the-art when it was made in 1957, and some are downright abysmal (although, in fairness, they did an excellent job with other effects and made the most of their modest budget).
It was the first film adaptation of the work of the legendary Richard Matheson, and the book is a fascinating study in the loss of power through loss of size. Scott Carey’s feeling of loss of masculinity was not given its full dimension because of 1950s era restrictions (one element left out, which would probably be best left out today, too, because it’s a particularly touchy topic, is when Carey is targeted by a pedophile).
I’d like to see the story structured as in the book (where the story flashes back and forth between Carey’s duel with the spider and the events leading up to it), as in the IDW adaptation of it. And I’d like to see the spider portrayed as a lame-in-one-leg black widow (as in the book, again), rather than as the 1950s Hollywood FX Tarantula.
Of course, the ending is kind of a downer. It was in the 1957 film, too, although they strove mightily to give it an upbeat tone.
I finally thought of a good analogy:
“Would the Toy Story movies work with live actors instead of toys?”
Think of the budget savings if they didn’t even pretend to be toys. They wouldn’t have to be small or fit in toy boxes, so it’d just be Tim Allen in a spacesuit… and Tom Hanks could bring his own flannel shirt to the set. And they’d sit around Andy’s bedroom and say their lines. I bet we’ll see this on Disney + any day now… and I won’t get a cent.
Actually, that change made sense, since the scene called for a type of spider that actively hunts rather than one that spins a web and passively waits.
I’m sure that’s only fortuitously true – 1950s Hollywood had an obsession with big, hairy tarantules, especially when expanded to giant monsters.