Remakes, Reboots, Retreads

I just listened to an episode of the Hollywood Saloon podcast from last May. In this episode, Andy Siems and John Jansen discuss "Fertile Cinema" or rather how the once-fertile ground of Hollywood no longer seems to produce fresh, new ideas like it used to. Now, that podcast may be a year old, but a glance at a list of this year's current and upcoming releases reveals a distinct lack of original material. Clash of the Titans, the #1 film last week, is a remake (and oh-my-god has it actually been thirty years since that came out?). Death at a Funeral, which opened last weekend, is a remake of a film from only three years ago, this time with a mostly African-American cast. As is the trend in comedy these days, the new version is also filled with pop culture references which will be completely stale by the time someone remakes the film again three years from now starring America Ferrera, Diego Luna, George Lopez (as the corpse), and, as always, Peter Dinklage. And the upcoming "re-imagining" of A Nightmare on Elm Street ...seriously? After 7 Nightmare movies and Freddy vs. Jason haven't we been over this enough?

Of course, it all comes down to making money. Studios do not want to lose money; therefore, they are afraid to take a chance on something without a proven audience. And if they do take that chance, then the movie has to have big stars as box office insurance. But the actors are also afraid of taking a chance and trying something too different; after all, they don't want a flop either. A recent example is Date Night starring Steve Carell and Tina Fey, both big stars on TV with some success in films. Even though it isn't based on another movie, the ideas in Date Night are not terribly original. It immediately brings to mind other "into the night" films, from The Out-of-Towners to After Hours to Adventures in Babysitting, in which mild-mannered protagonists get in over their heads in the big city.

In their podcast, The Hollywood Saloon guys lump films based on books into the stale pile, but personally I feel less critical toward literary adaptations, especially ones that have never been filmed before. Screenwriters need inspiration and I'd rather watch a film based on actual literature than a live-action version of the Marmaduke comic strip (coming June 4th!). If the stories and characters are original, transferring them to a different medium doesn't feel derivative. And sometimes the film offers a fresh approach to the source material. For example, in Adaptation, screenwriter Charlie Kaufman chose to dramatize the process of adapting The Orchid Thief by Susan Orlean for the screen. Kaufman, Orlean, and the titular orchid thief all became fictional characters in the film.

If you look back at some of the most popular films in history (not just box office hits, but well-liked movies which also made a lot of money), you will find many original stories. Back to the Future, Raiders of the Lost Ark, Star Wars, Home Alone, Titanic, ET: The Extra-Terrestrial, Ghostbusters, The Matrix, even Avatar - and these are just within the past 35 years. Many of the films I just listed also went on to spawn popular sequels, for better or worse. But what happens when Hollywood stops producing the franchise seeds of the future? Will we be stuck recycling the same comic book heroes over and over? The Incredible Hulk character got an almost instant re-boot after Ang Lee's The Hulk flopped in 2003. The Incredible Hulk directed by Louis Leterrier came out in 2008. Perhaps the studio assumed that since few people actually saw Lee's film, audiences were still dying for a Hulk movie. Leterrier's wasn't a hit either, so I can only imagine that at this moment several writers are crafting a new Hulk story; but this one will be even more "dark" and navel-gazing than before because people loved that stuff in The Dark Knight, so why not jump on that bandwagon.

OK, I'll wrap up my rant before it begins to more closely resemble a crappy dissertation. The point is this: plots and ideas can be recycled yet still remain fresh and entertaining. However, that's not the current state of affairs in Hollywood. In fact, it is becoming excessively derivative. The "golden age" of cinema was filled with exciting, funny, and surprising films - these are the classics which we still watch today. What will the classic films from this decade be if all we have are retreads of what came before?