Hollywood, Recycled

So right now, I'm pondering a multitude of entertainment industry-related thoughts. They range from, "OMG, Mike Meyers will never die if Rob Zombie keeps remaking the Halloween franchise!"...to... "C'mon, will Tron seriously make sense in 2010? Isn't Jeff Bridges a little too old for this nonsense?"

I'm a girl who's worked in the film industry. I've written screenplays and studied the craft of story-telling for many years. And even though there is "nothing new under the sun," we still have the power to be somewhat creative.

"Take it, change it up a bit, create a new twist, make it fresh, make it hot, and then run with it!" These were the words once uttered by my ex-literary agent when he asked me to recreate Rebel Without a Cause. Imagine that. Recycling James Dean and Natalie Wood. "Oh, and Emily. I wanna see sex. Lots of sex in this one."

Sigh.

It occurred to me that Hollywood must have one gigantic chalkboard marked with films from the 70's, 80's, and (God help us)...the 90's. The studio execs are twiddling their thumbs right now, brainstorming; mulling over this magical chalkboard that might actually exist somewhere on the Sony lot. I can hear it. "Will a remake of Dirty Dancing sell tickets overseas?" (And here I thought I was just being cute with my Dirty Dancing remark. Ha! Turns out Lionsgate is on it.

Is that as bad as Chace Crawford thrusting his pelvis for happy little tweens in next summer's Footloose? Hmm. We shall see.

I just watched the trailer for next month's Fame - a remake of the 80's musical about students at the New York Academy of Performing Arts - and it looks as cool as the original despite several cast members looking plucked from the set of High School Musical. (Also Kelsey Grammar plays an acting teacher which caught me off guard too.) But once I heard the hip-hop'ish remake of that Irene Cara song everybody loves, I cringed! What have they done to this film? And why are they butchering Irene's song? Bottom line: you can't remake a classic.

Well, I take it back. Occasionally, someone brilliant like Martin Scorsese comes along and recycles a film...actually improving it (Cape Fear). But Scorsese is the exception, not the rule. I can probably count on one hand how many recycled films are worth 2 hours of my time. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory ain't one of them.

Rumor has it that Bill Murray, Dan Akroyd, and Harold Ramis are ready to throw on their uniforms and fight ghosts running rampant in New York City again. And Jackie Chan is prepared to take on Mr. Miagi in a Karate Kid remake. Do you see a new trend here? Let's see how many cool movies from the 80's we can recycle! If that's the case, then I'm crossing my fingers they remake Can't Buy Me Love. Oh wait. They did that already.

So while Hollywood flips through VHS tapes of 80's blockbuster hits, what happens when they run out of films to remake? Do we move into the 90's and hope that the new Pretty Woman with some actress from the new 90210 is a hit?

If that's the case, I hope Scorsese's directing.