For every successful remake like “The Karate Kid” there are numerous reboots that flop hard like “Total Recall,” “Arthur,” and “RoboCop” (which hasn’t come out yet but we’re placing our bets now). But that hasn’t stopped movie producers from actually, actively seeking to remake the following films…
Dirty Dancing
Plot: A girl helps, falls for, and is forbidden to a see a dance instructor during a family’s vacation in the Catskills in 1963 that seems to last the entire summer and most of fall. But this being the 60’s, the girl defies society’s rules…by learning to do the cha-cha. Then the girl is lifted triumphantly in the air. Then everyone wonders why they didn’t just go on a cruise instead.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: Role of “Johnny Castle” is so connected to the late Patrick Swayze that to see anyone else play it would be like watching Han Solo be performed by Greedo. Recent reboot “Dirty Dancing: Havana Nights” already proved that you can’t strike lightening twice, especially when you use half your dance movie to chronicle the rise of Castro.
Jumanji
Plot: Two kids find a mysterious old board game, start playing it, and accidentally unleash a horde of charging rhinos, giant mosquitoes, and CGI monkeys that looked startling realistic back in 1995 but by today’s standards resemble Mr. Teeny from “The Simpsons.” Oh, and they also release Robin Williams unto the world, but don’t blame the kids for that.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: The story “Find board game, play board game, unleash animals” doesn’t lend itself to a lot of reinterpretation, especially when it barely served as a plot the first time around. Only reason to remake the movie would be to use superior effects to make animals so terrifyingly realistic that the audience could actually believe they would rip open the chest cavities of the two kid characters. Robin Williams may want to star in this one, too.
Gremlins
Plot: Father gives son a small furry creature called “Gizmo” and three simple rules: Never expose him to bright light, never get him wet, and never feed him after midnight. Idiot son can’t even follow one of those rules and soon Gizmo is spawning bloodthirsty, mayhem-seeking, lizard-like gremlins who create such over-the-top havoc this very film resulted in Hollywood creating the PG-13 rating. Oh, and it’s a Christmas movie.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: This same story line has already essentially been done twice (with “Gremlins 2: The New Batch” actually being the better of the two). Reboot would mean bringing back Howie Mandel (the voice of Gizmo), so there’s a chance some half-assed game show involving briefcases or a flash mob may appear in the middle of the movie. Possibly increased bloodletting could cause Hollywood to create a new rating called NC-45.
WarGames
Plot: Looking for a new game to play, a kid accidentally hacks into NORAD with a landline and a home computer that barely has enough power to show vowels on its screen. Doing so starts the countdown to nuclear assault on the Soviet Union. Computer stops World War III from happening when it learns that it can’t win at tic-tac-toe. Really.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: Original 1983 movie was very much a product of both the Cold War and a time when people weren’t sure home computers would serve as a means of storing recipes or could kill them in their sleep thanks to those “bytes” they were only first hearing about. Today, idea of a teen hacking into NORAD sounds less like a movie thriller and something one would briefly see scrolling across the bottom of CNN between news updates of Justin Bieber trying to explain that photo of him with a heroin needle, naked midget, and scuba mask.
Honey, I Shrunk the Kids
Plot: Struggling inventor creates an electromagnetic shrink ray that accidentally shrinks his own children (and some neighbor’s kids of which he’s probably less worried about). Kids must survive brooms, bees, scorpions, and a bowl of Cheerios as parents frantically search for them. No kid winds up having to be removed from the bottom of a sneaker by scraping it against the curb.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: True, the new version would feature furniture and insects that didn’t clearly look like they were oversized props or being manipulated by six puppeteers just off camera. But there’s a good chance the new version would just feature the kids screaming while being chased by a Roomba. Plus, innocent magic of first movie could be lost if instead the kids are shrunk down to microscopic size and immediately devoured by a virus.
Scarface
Plot: A young man arrives in Miami with big dreams of running a multimillion-dollar coke empire, banging countless hookers, and inspiring the plot to more than half of all Rockstar Games. He then learns that crime pays spectacularly…unless it’s the third act of a movie, in which case everyone dies.
Why Remake Should Not Be Made: To match intensity of Al Pacino’s performance in the movie, studio would have to find an actor who could perform through a bullhorn and do a Latino accent with a level of cultural sensitivity not seen since “Speedy Gonzalez” cartoons. Original version already used up 95% of Hollywood’s prop drugs. There’s always the chance Johnny Depp would want to do this wearing another weird hat and using an even more off-putting accent.
What movie are you most hoping will NOT be remade? Let us know in the comments below!
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