The Good, the Bad, & the Baffling of Upcoming Movie Remakes

Entertainment / Movies

The Good, the Bad, & the Baffling of Upcoming Movie Remakes

By: Lauren Saccone

People love to hate movie remakes. Either they’re viewed as tired rehashes or inexplicable attempts to cash in on the nostalgia factor – or in some truly terrible cases, both. Despite this seemingly common knowledge, movie studios continue to toss out remakes and reboots with depressing consistency. Some  are wonderful (after all, The Magnificent Seven, Scarface, The Departed, and The Fly are all remakes, and Christopher Nolan’s Batman trilogy was an extremely successful reboot). Most, however… are not. Here are some of the remakes on their way to theaters, whether we want them or not.

Dredd (September 2012) This remake of the catastrophic flop Judge Dredd has a lot going for it. First of all, most moviegoers have successfully blocked out Sylvester Stallone’s 1995 cinematic train wreck. The script harkens back to the original comics that made Dredd such a popular antihero. And Karl Urban, most recently of Star Trek fame, is putting on Dredd’s helmet. With enthusiastic early buzz on the film (despite some naysayers who claim the trailer reveals a plot that's nearly identical to this year's hot Indonesian martial-arts extravaganza, The Raid)  things are looking up for the Judge.


Evil Dead (2013) The low-budget horror movie that became a cult classic (and launched the career of actor Bruce Campbell and eventual director of the Spider-Man trilogy Sam Raimi) is getting an extreme makeover, with a female lead (Jane Levy, TV's Suburgatory) in place of Campbell’s Ash. Unfortunately, with a script penned by Jennifer’s Body writer Diablo Cody, there’s serious concern that the story will be heavy on pop culture cuteness and lacking in the terror department. Screener reports from Comic Con say that the film has only a passing connection to the original series. So why call it a remake at all?


Rebecca (Announced) There is exactly one person who has successfully remade an Alfred Hitchcock movie; and that was Alfred Hitchcock.  Just ask Gus Van Sant how well remaking the "Master of Suspense" went for him. And yet people persist, with attempts to reproduce both this and Hitchcock’s classic The Birds. True, screenwriter Steven Knight (Eastern Promises and the criminally underrated Dirty Pretty Things) is attached to the project. But when the original combined the forces of Hitchcock, Sir Laurence Olivier, and Joan Fontaine – well, that’s setting the bar pretty high.

Red Dawn (November 2012) This Cold War classic is getting the modern treatment with an all-star cast to help it along. Actually filmed in 2009, the movie has been unable to find a release due to its struggling distributor. Luckily, 2012 has proven a banner year for star Chris Hemsowrth, with dual success in Cabin in the Woods and the blockbuster The Avengers. Add in Josh Peck (The Wackness), Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Watchmen), and Josh Hutcherson (The Hunger Games), and that might prove to be just enough to get this film into theaters.

Robocop (2013) Although the original movie of the half man, half machine crime fighter is still beloved for its grittiness and creative violence, don’t count this reboot out just yet. The cast includes such heavyweights as Gary Oldman, Samuel L. Jackson, Hugh Laurie, and Jackie Earle Haley. Add in the promise of some truly spectacular special effects, and this has the potential to be an exciting update. Or at the least, an entertaining disaster. 


[Pic via screengrab of Dredd trailer]
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