Remaking Cronenberg's Classics!?

So, perhaps I’m a little late on this news as the articles I tend to find on the subject all seem to be from around 2009, but there appears to be (or at least was) plans to remake David Cronenberg’s 80’s body horror classics VIDEODROME and THE BROOD. Here are links to a couple articles:
http://www.aintitcool.com/node/40889
http://www.chud.com/21883/the-brood-remake-gets-a-crazies-director/

Now, in checking the imdb pages for the suspect directors, I don’t see any information on these remakes. So my first aim with this thread is to ask anyone else if they know if these have been canned or not. Secondly, I’d like to facilitate a discussion on the merits (or lack thereof) of remaking these films. Anyone?

I’ve never seen The Brood, but I’m not too sure what anyone can add to Videodrome to make it any better. Maybe more conventional to an audience, but that’s about it.

For the most part, I’ve always wondered why studios didn’t just re-release the films theatrically instead of spending millions of dollars on a remake that could end up sucking and not being a commercial hit. The reason most studios tend to do the remakes instead of re-leasing the original is probably because people nowadays aren’t too familiar with James Woods or Deborah Harry or whoever and most people need a major star for reassurance. I could be wrong, though.

I don’t have a problem with remakes, though. If a director really wants to do a remake, let him. At some point in my life, I want to do a remake of Hellraiser. I feel that it needs to be done.

This does not bode well. Though I also doubt they’ll get remade.

I doubt they’ll be remade as well, but I’d like to know if anyone has heard anything as to whether or not these have been canned for sure. This is almost worse for me than when I heard about that Suspiria remake a while back that his since dissolved. As for catering to a modern audience, they’re talking about integrating aspects of nano technology into the Videodrome story. We’ve already killed the possibility of certain old (arguably classic) horror themes (ex. When a Stranger Calls) with technology like cellphones and what-not and I can only see a Videodrome remake as an excuse for Best Buy electronics product placement. Is Max Renn going to have a blu-ray tray in his stomach and a flatscreen TV? He’ll work for a big time digital cable company? UGH

Max Renn does not approve.

Nothing in Breck Eisner’s filmography would lead me to be optimistic about this. Wasn’t he also rumored to be potentially involved in a Flash Gordon remake?

Ughhhh. The Brood could be remade though; never thought too highly of that film for some reason.

I’d like to see Shivers receive a facelift (though I still love the original) … by Cronenberg. Wouldn’t that be mind-blowing?

I’m just happy Dangerous Method has a US distributor.

That’s something I can be happy about, Matt: Cronenberg, Jung, and Freud. =)

THE BROOD’s style is a little hard to get a bead on. Took three viewings (the third on a big screen) before I felt its execution lived up to its obviously fucking exceptional content. But any remake would just blow it.

Yeah, it’s one of his toughest films. Great stuff in there, though.

Any remake of The Brood or Videodrome—or any early Cronenberg, for that matter—would stand to be substantially different in tone from any of the originals. Sure, some contemporary torture porn is equivalent in terms of gore, but with Cronenberg it was always about the violence of the body itself, rather than violence being done to the body. Without that key idea, I don’t see how anyone could hope to replicate Cronenberg’s work.

Beyond this, I just think it’s idiotic that anyone would remake an early Cronenberg. I’d heard about this before, but honestly I doubt it’ll ever get off the ground. Kind of like that ‘Thing’ remake they were gonna do.

I think a Thing prequel is actually shooting right now.

A Videodrome remake is either perfect in today’s world, or completely obvious and redundant.

The Thing is an interesting example because it’s one where Carpenter’s film succeeds on it’s own terms as a successful reimagining for its own time of the Nyby/Hawks original. The new one, as I recall, is a prequel to Carpenter’s. I agree, though, that is hard to imagine (as it would be with Cronenberg’s film) it being as successful in retrofitting the story to the contemporary world as Carpenter was.

“I’d like to see Shivers receive a facelift (though I still love the original) … by Cronenberg. Wouldn’t that be mind-blowing?”

I think part of what gives Shivers its charm is the fact that it was a low budget exploitation film. It is conducive to the grittiness of the philosophy and parasitical attacks featured in the film. Not to mention it places a degree of realism that I believe we would not get otherwise. Can you seriously imagine anyone but Lynn Lowry delivering the “even old flesh is erotic flesh, disease is the love of two alien kinds of creatures for each other” monologue?
Also, let us not forget that Cronenberg’s early cinema was the first directorial cannon to place the Other in the horror picture within us, so I find that everything from Shivers to Rabid, The Brood, Videodrome Dead Ringers, The Fly, Crash, etc… is absolutely untouchable.

As for a Videodrome remake, let’s just say I am not ready for the cathode ray to resonate within other forms of technology. I can see a remake expanding into cyber-space, realms of reality TV, and an unnecessary over-abundance of shock porn. While computers existed in 1983 there is a reason why Cronie only used television as the technology and his name is Marshall McLuhan: (who seems to be in every sense the inspiration for Brian O’Blivion)

Even when addressing relevancy in culture, the problem with a remake of Videodrome is that Videodome (1983) is inevitably more dangerous because it has a philosophy.

While I do feel that it would be wonderful if Cronenberg returned to the art of body horror I feel that re-making his own films would be a step backwards.

With that said: http://www.comingsoon.net/news/movienews.php?id=59439

Videodrome is one of the least appropriate films in the universe to remake.

Now, a film with themes similar to Videodrome but with the trappings of modern technology, that might be a good idea.

But trying to remake a film that was designed for a particular aesthetic and shock value for the time it was released? I’d see freaking Rise Of The Planet Of The Apes before I saw a remake like that.

“Now, a film with themes similar to Videodrome but with the trappings of modern technology, that might be a good idea.”

Have you seen eXistenZ?

I almost forgot about eXistenZ, that wasn’t half bad and a kind of spiritual sequel to Videodrome. Good call, Solar.

I want to remake Crash.

I actually haven’t seen it but Buadrillard talks about it frequently. And its also based off of a book so there is that too…

“And its also based off of a book so there is that too…”

Now that Ballard’s dead (the author, not the character in the novel), there are a whole slew of adaptations of his books in the works, so now would be a good time.