Yesterday I stumbled upon the reality that the movie Overboard is being remade. Now, I was never a huge fan of the film, it was okay and I’d watch it if it happened to be on. I have friends who are much bigger fans. But I always figured it was one of those movies that had been left alone. Till Yesterday.
It made me wonder at what point does a movie get to ‘remakable’ status? Is there a time limit? A quality level? Perhaps nothing at all (and I’m starting to think this is the reality.)
They made the first Spiderman movie with Toby McGuire in it in 2002. Since then, they have made 2 sequels, rebooted it, made a sequel to that one and rebooted it again. All in 16 years. At least with the latest guy, its because the ownership changed hands therefore contracts were different.
But seriously. 16 years, 6 movies (8 if you include Captian America: Civil War and the upcoming Avengers movie), 3 actors. That is roughly a new Spiderman movie every 2-3 years and only a few are actually connected to each other. Toby McQuire came out with one in 2002. 2004, and 2007. Andrew Garfield got 2012 and 2014. Tom Holland got 2017 (with 2016 (CA:CW) and 2018 (Avengers: Infinty Wars) as honorable mentions).
Seems a lot. (Although I wish Tom Holland luck with the role. He seems like a sweetheart.)
It makes the Star Trek reboot look like they took way too long (almost 50 years).
Of course there is Star Wars, creatively sourced as a continuation rather than a reboot. They are using the same basic plots so I find the last series to be generally less impressive than the other two (yes, I’m a freak who loves the Prequels. Not as much as the original trilogy, but I do love them). I don’t want to watch The Original Trilogy with Anakin 2.0
The Mummy was recently remade, though I did not see this version due to an aversion of all things Tom Cruise. Plus the Brendan Fraser Trio was a big part of my middle school years. I don’t want to ruin them with whatever this new one is. Which doesn’t appear to be anything like the 1932 original, or the Fraser 1999 remake. So I’m not sure if it’s so much a remake as its “Hey, we got the rights to this film franchise and a budget, want to film?” type deal.
There are times I adore remakes. It just seems that recently the board has been pretty flooded with remakes and reboots and sequels. And some of them run pretty close together. I can understand a remake/reboot if enough time as passed (King Kong, Godzilla and Star Trek for example). Book adaptations happen all time (Look up the many many many versions of Pride and Prejudice. I did once. I think there were thirty some at the time). I just don’t get why I’m getting remakes/reboots of films that have been released since I was in high school. Sure, its been over a decade but barely and still within memory.
At the very least a decade should be the minimum amount of time unless the movie was awful (ex. The Incredible Hulk movies. We don’t talk about the Incredible Hulk movies).
I remember reading somewhere that someone had boiled down the general narratives of the world to about 6 storylines. And that everything basically followed one of them. But there are a million ways to be creative with a prompt. Just look at any writing group and ask them their responses to a prompt. You are bound to get a bunch of variety even with the same building blocks.
So I don’t think its a hard task to find something out there that is creative, even if its something old. At least something not made in the last decade. At the rate we are going, The day I turn 40, Harry Potter will be releasing its remake of A Deathly Hallows.
That being said…I’m probably going to be watching the new Overboard. If only because the fact they genderswapped it sounds intriguing.
I believe I wrote about this before, but it was just a recent rant in my mind that needed to come out. What are your thoughts on the matter?
Sokorra Lewis 