Reboot Fever: Keeping Track of the Hollywood Remakes, So You Don’t Have To!

Christopher Rosen — Thu, 04 Jun 2009 15:39:34 -0400

Do you hear that sound? It’s a Hollywood executive riffling through an old box of VHS tapes to find the next great reboot! (“Let’s do Big Trouble in Little China… with Sawyer from Lost!”) With Hollywood seemingly completely out of ideas—last month it was announced that a movie based on Bazooka Joe comic strips is in the works—the reboot has become a staple of the industry. This summer we’ve already seen the good (Star Trek) and the bad (Terminator Salvation), and, based on the news this week, we can expect plenty more where they came from. In fact, there’s been so much reboot news since Monday we thought it best to compile it all in one place. As the saying goes, you can’t tell a reboot without a scorecard!

The Karate Kid

News: Taraji P. Henson is joining the Jackie Chan-fronted reboot as the mother of Jaden “My dad is Will” Smith.

Prognosis: We simply love Ms. Henson (Talk to Me, The Curious Case of Benjamin Button) but the new Karate Kid is like a skunk—you want to stay as far away from it as possible, or risk getting sprayed by its stench.

Total Recall

News: Kurt Wimmer (Equilibrium, The Recruit) is writing the script for Columbia.

Prognosis: As is usually the case with reboots, the new film will concentrate more on the Phillip K. Dick source material, We Can Remember It For You Wholesale, rather than the Arnold Schwarzenegger science-fiction classic. (Yes, classic.) Normally we’d think something like this was a good idea, but with Neal H. Moritz doing the producing—he being the mastermind behind such films as XXX: State of the Union and the Fast & Furious franchise—color us skeptical.

The Warriors

News: Warriors, come out to play! Tony Scott is planning an update of the classic film, which will move the story from New York to Los Angeles so he can do a “study of gang culture.”

Prognosis: Can you dig it? Us neither! We actually consider ourselves fans of Mr. Scott’s action bonafides, but taking a movie like The Warriors, which is so inherently ‘70s New York, and switching it to present day Los Angeles misses the point.

Scream 4

News: Kevin Williamson has started talks with Courtney Cox-Arquette and her husband David to gauge their interest in returning for another film that will ostensibly reboot the franchise.

Prognosis: As the beloved Randy (Jamie Kennedy) said in Scream 2: “Sequels sucks!” We wonder what he would think about a fourth film. Everything about another Scream seems like a bad idea, but, when you think about it, maybe that’s the point. Here’s hoping Mr. Williamson kills off whatever original cast members he can get in the first reel.

Hamlet

News: Catherine Hardwicke will direct Emile Hirsch in an updated version of Hamlet that will take place on a college campus.

Prognosis: 1997 called, it wants this news back. Modernizing Shakespeare is about twelve years too late—for references see: 10 Things I Hate About You (an update of The Taming of the Shrew), O (an update of Othello) and Romeo + Juliet (you can figure this one out). And while we’re as happy as the next person that Mr. Hirsch and Ms. Hardwicke are reuniting (Lords of Dogtown for life!), did they both forget that this movie already happened with Ethan Hawke? Just cast Julia Stiles as Ophelia (again) and get it over with.

Observer » Reboot Fever: Keeping Track of the Hollywood Remakes, So You Don’t Have To!

Reboot Fever: Keeping Track of the Hollywood Remakes, So You Don’t Have To!