I always had a hankering to do an updated Cabinet of Dr. Caligari… there have been some people here and there using the name for quasi-remakes but nobody has gone the whole hog yet…
and for some reason, A Nightmare On Elm street (which they are remaking now)… a child molester who haunts your dreams in a nightmarishly surreal way… yes, I want to make this… too bad Hollywood is probably fucking it up and watering it down as I type.
The weird thing is… I’m not even really into horror films…
Metropolis or The 400 Blows
why would you re-make the 400 blows? what’s wrong with it?if i may ask..
a remake doesnt imply something is wrong with the film. for me, its a show of love for a great film. not a corrective exercise. that is, unless i misread the intention of this thread.
i’ve always wanted to remake godard’s “vivre sa vie”. i even wrote a script for it. no reason other than its one of my favorite films, and i always thought it would be great to make the ultimate homage to it, which is maybe the definition of a remake.
Bobby, initially I was thinking more along the lines of corrective surgery on serviceable premises, but you bring up a good point. A lot of successful remakes are based on great films where they just want to take it in a different direction, despite being respectful. Case in point The Thing.
rather than a remake, since the original remake wasn’t so much a remake as a reconstruction based on the original model (what the hell is he talking about?) i thought it’d be a good idea to reintroduce Sirk’s All That Heaven Allows and Fassbinder’s Fear Eats The Soul into a modern setting, with newer problems but still use the old model of age and class differences affecting two people’s love. if done right, it would be as good as the original; if done poorly, it’d be a chick flick. in any case, i’ve got the idea for the new version in my head just haven’t bothered to write anything down. that’s probably going to make it difficult to get it going though, won’t it?
i also thought a reworking (which i think is more polite than a straight on remake, since capturing that kind of genius twice is close to impossible!) of Bunuel’s The Exterminating Angel to a modern suburban-American setting would be a rollicking good time!
I would love to remake Stephen King’s The Stand. The 1994 film was actually decent but it has potential to be one of the greatest films of all time.
i understand the point of your thread now. but i think very few remakes are attempts at correction. maybe just those that are remade by the same director.
except Funny Games which is exactly the same..
And The Vanishing which was Sluizer’s attempt to loot Hollywood. Ugh.
I think The Maltese Falcon would count as a correction. Maybe The Fly.
I was literally just thinking about this a couple days ago when I was watching Riding Alone for Thousands of Miles. It wasn’t even that I thought there were hiccups, or the execution was off, but the strained father-son relationship is something very familiar, and I kind of wanted to place my experiences on the film.
Spoilers: so don’t read if you want to see the film (actually don’t read it at all, no one should be subjected to my idiocy)
I would only change the film in one way, but I would do it in one of two ways.
1.) I would make the repair in the relationship ambiguous. The voice-over of the son reading the letter kind of felt a little sentimental (not bad at all, or out of place, but just something I would have avoided).
Or…
2.) I would have made the repair nonexistent. I would have made it very clear that the son didn’t forgive him, and that the only time the father did anything for his son was on his death bed.
I think the first option is a bit better. It leaves more to the audience, and isn’t anywhere near as dark, and overly-depressing.
I would love to remake anything by Hitchcock. Namely, “39 Steps” or “Rebecca”. The plots are pitch perfect and give more than enough leeway for great performances and character interaction. In 39 Steps, the give and take between Richard and Pamela would be a lot of fun to do in a modern context. For Rebecca, i think it would be an actress’s dream to play Joan Fontaine’s character (as well as the insanely devoted Ms. Danvers), with that invisible presence of the first wife haunting the film.
Also, the premises of both films (romantic comedy/thriller, psychological horror) offer so much variety in the way of stylistic choices.
This is a good question. I’m surprised. I’ll have to think about this one. I hate thinking.
I know it would be nearly impossible to live up to the original, but I would love to do a mini-series from Stroheim’s original script for Greed. The studio cut it down so much that it really would be an entirely new animal, and would be the first time that Stroheim’s original vision made it intact to the screen.
REBECCA is a good call… but I guess I would choose ORDINARY PEOPLE. The movie is quite good, and Timothy Hutton is especially remarkable, but the book is so much better and much more idyosincratic.
I’d take a film that’s sort of familiar… all too familiar in some ways… let’s say a film that once depended on “shock value” but isn’t that shocking anymore… a film that was cutting edge for its time but also had embarrassingly clunky stuff in it about “what a transvestite is,” etc.., stuff like that… in fact, Psycho, yeah, that would be perfect! … why didn’t I think of it before? … and I’ll remake it almost shot for shot, but tweak it just a little here and there… yeah, like that… and I’ll get my friends Vince and Anne and Bill and Philip and Viggo and Julianne to be in it! Gee whiz!
Justin, that may be the smartest idea you’ve ever had. I’m on my way to your house with my camera, let’s do it. By the way, can your friend Vince be incredibly inappropriate for the part?
…..it wouldn’t be a shitty reboot called Terminator: Salvation that did no justice to the original duoligy. Yes, “duoligy”.
I would make a modern (really modern) version of Yojimbo, continuing the legacy…
I would remake Wall Street without that idiotic moral resolution. Prime example of a ruined movie. Heeee haad a tape recorder, how original…
@ FANDORIN-SAN, Oliver Stone is actually currently working on Wall Street 2! Shia LeBeouf is supposed to star, along with Michael Douglas, if you can believe it.
and if i’m not mistaken, they announced a hitchcock hollywood remake a few years ago. i want to say “39 steps”, if my memory isnt failing me.
Would anyone dare remake Jaws?? With our technology today it could be done but would it work?
The Birds is on Michael Bay’s slate.
“jaws” works precisely because of the lack of technology (among other reasons).
Van Helsing.
The idea of someone fighting the classic Universal monsters is an interesting premise, but needs to be done completely differently.
1. Not so much computer generated effects.
2. A better story.
3. Needs re-casting.
4. less or at least better “humor” (the word humor being used lightly).
The Avengers
A TV show I loved, but was messed in the film.
Again, better story.
Needs re-casting.
@ ahmin lee: shia labeouf? honestly? wow! I’ve heard about that project before, but I didn’t think it was actually going to happen. oh my god, why shia labeouf? what could the story possibly be about? he gets out of prison and…?
East of Eden, but I would focus on the first 2/3rds of the book, and name it something different. So I guess it isn’t really a remake, because James Dean is the only Cal, and I am no Kazan.
Fahrenheit 451: could have been a lot better.
Joshua W
What film would you remake? And what would you change? Think about it not in terms of films you love, but in films that weren’t made how you think they should’ve been made, films that suffered hiccups during their execution.
For me, I pick Soylent Green. I love the premise, I think it could be a really dark, interesting sci-fi, but I think they dropped the ball on delivery. First I’d ax Charlton Heston, although I don’t hate him I just don’t think he’s right for the part, and then I’d someone a little subtler. Like Michael Shannon. You’d have to play down the mystery side of the film, and make it more about the overpopulated state of the nation, so to speak. I’d keep the old man’s suicide sequence essentially the same, however. I love that sequence.