Put the Right Ones Out

Hollywood doesn’t like the expression, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it." You see, the studio honchos that control the "dream factory" have come to realize that while originality is sacred, notoriety is one of the most valuable assets a film property can have.

This has led to both good news and unfortunate tales from this industry. On the happy side, Hollywood has recently taken doomed franchises – Star Trek, Batman and 007, to name a few – and have “rebooted” these popular culture staples. These updates are fresh, exciting, terrifically entertaining, and feature awards-caliber writing and performances.

On the flip-side, we have a studio system acting half out of desperation, and half out of what can only be described as “cinematic amnesia.”

Recently, many major studios are taking familiar properties and cashing in on their rehashed imaginings. In 2010 alone, we’ve seen an updated Alice in Wonderland, Clash of the Titans, Karate Kid, Robin Hood, The Wolfman, and A Nightmare on Elm Street. Don’t expect year-end accolades for any of these pictures.

The “cinematic amnesia” seeps in not just when executives start putting their productions on an assembly line (the recent Alice in Wonderland smash has now spawned such rebooted offspring as Snow White and Cinderella) but when recent films – those that came out within the last decade – are being turned into new franchises. And those are bound to make a profit, right?

If all goes according to Hollywood’s master-plan, here is what you can expect to hit multiplexes over the next few years:

-Spider-Man, starring The Social Network’s Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker and Easy A’s Emma Stone as Gwen Stacy, to be directed by (500) Days of Summer’s Marc Webb (here come the puns, here come the puns…)

-Superman, from director/slow-motion expert Zack Snyder (300). It’s only been four years since Bryan Singer took the reins, people. And speaking of Bryan Singer…

-…X-Men: First Class, an origin tale about those Marvel-ous mutants, starring James McAvoy as Xavier and Michael Fassbender as Magneto. At least they have Matthew Vaughn (Kick-Ass) in the director's chair.

And that’s just the superhero genre, folks! Is there anybody out there eager for an Arthur remake that replaces Dudley Moore with Russell Brand? Or a live-action version of Akira? How about cult hit The Warriors? The sci-fi classic Alien? Red Dawn? Footloose? Getting the picture?

To be fair, there have been some excellent remakes in recent memory. Ocean’s Eleven was one of last decade’s most satisfying treats, with one of the smoothest screenplays ever sculpted. Meanwhile, The Departed, based on an excellent Hong Kong thriller, took home the Best Picture Academy Award in 2007. James Mangold’s 3:10 to Yuma also helped to revive the Western genre in style (which makes the Coen Brothers’ take on True Grit, due out December 25, even more enticing).

Unfortunately, it seems as if everything is becoming, as the narrator in Fight Club prophesied, “A copy of a copy of a copy.”

Last week, I went to see Matt Reeves’ American remake of the Swedish vampire love story Let the Right One In (the new version, in theatres now, is titled Let Me In). When excellent film-festival buzz and strong reviews suggested that this version had surpassed the lofty expectations set by the original - one that came out in North America only 23 months ago - I decided to check it out.

It turns out that Let Me In wasn’t all that bad – just annoyingly unnecessary. It was almost the same film as the one that inspired it, just with blander performances, little atmosphere, less soul and no point.

So I plead with you: try your best to avoid these “reimaginings.” Save a few choice updates that I mentioned earlier, if we all pay our cinema fare to films that we saw just a few seasons ago or that remind us of the titles stashed on our shelves at home, we're in for a dismal future in cinema. Monotony may be nice for business. But for art, it is unacceptable.

If Hollywood only had the brain, the heart and the nerve to capitalize on taking risks… I mean, many of us (Warner Bros. included) are still recovering from the whirlwind that was Inception. But there’s no use alluding to The Wizard of Oz, folks. Hollywood’s planning on remaking that one, too.