Remakes are Fine IF They Are Done Right!
Remakes? Yuck!
People complain about the amount of remakes - or 'reboots' as they like to call them - these days. But they forget that Hollywood has ALWAY liked to 'refresh' classic movies as audience tastes evolve. Did you know there were - for example - that Charles Dicken's novel Oliver Twist has been adapted into film 18 times!
And remakes don't have to mean 'bad'! Some of my favourite remakes are; Invasion Of The Body Snatchers (1978), The Thing (1982), Scarface (1983), The Fly (1986), The Birdcage (1996), 3:10 To Yuma (2007), to name but a few.
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| Above: The original 'Thing' from the 1951 movie. Which do you prefer? |
My personal favourite remake is David Lean's 1946 adaptation of Dicken's 'Great Expectations', starring Alec Guinness, Jean Simmons and John Mill, et all. There had been two previous incarnations.
Which Modern Actors I'd Like to See in Classic Roles...
My interest in doing remakes is not only based on good stories that I think deserve another outing but also contemporary actors who I think would be ideal in some of the movie's main roles. Here's my list...
1. Josh Brolin as Philp Marlow
I *love* the 2012 movie 'Gangster Squad' and for me one of the stand out performances was Brolin's Sergeant John O'Mara, a World War II veteran-turned-cop. For me, this performance was the epitome of the 'hardboiled' noir detective.
Brolin's O'Mara put me so much in mind of Humphrey Bogart's portrayal of Chandeler's Philip Marlowe character that I did wonder whether why someone in Hollywood didn't immediately connect the dots and cast Brolin in the part. I still remain hopeful that, one day this will happen.
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| Above: Humphrey Bogart in 1946's 'The Big Sleep' |
(Incidentally, Brolin's character in 2015's 'Sicario' just reinforced my view that he's definitely right for modern 'dark' take on a Chandeler story.)
2. Emily Blunt as Violette Szabo
There's a lot of talk among Gen Z about the importance of 'strong women' characters in movies, like strong women characters never existed before Jennifer Lawrence infamously stated her role in Hunger Games was the first! 😖
I'm not going to reel film examples which show just how idiotic this notion was, but instead tell you just how much I feel Emily Blunt would make a very cool Violette Szabo! But, who is Violette Szabo you say...
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| Above: Virginia McKenna in the original 1958 movie. |
'Volette Reine Elizabeth Szabo, GC (née Bushell; 26 June 1921 – c. 5 February 1945) was a British-French Special Operations Executive (SOE) agent during the Second World War and a posthumous recipient of the George Cross. On her second mission into occupied France, Szabo was captured by the German army, interrogated, tortured, and deported to Ravensbrück concentration camp in Germany, where she was executed.' Wikipedia
In 1958's movie 'Carve Her Name with Pride' Above: gave and outstanding performance as the wartime heroine. McKenna performance - though lauded - was rather in the mould of the old-style 'stiff upper lip' classic British movie mould and I think this could use dusting off for modern audiences as it really is an inspirational story.
I've always been keen on highlighting the role of women in Britain during World War 2 as younger generations seem to think they invented the idea of females with an independent mind and grit. Emily Blunt has always struck me as an actress who can pull off both femininity and a believable tough action character (I'm thinking of her 2014 action film role in 'Edge of Tomorrow').
3. Ryan Reynolds in 'Harvey'
The idea of a movie about a guy who is convinced he can see a six foot high rabbit does seem a obvious box office winner for the 2020s, but - and bear with me - I cannot watch Tom Hardy's 'Venom' without thinking that the right comic actor could pull 'Harvey' off!
'Elwood P. Dowd is an affable man who claims to have an unseen (and presumably imaginary) friend Harvey – whom Elwood describes as a six foot, three-and-one-half inch (192 cm) tall pooka resembling an anthropomorphic rabbit.' (Wikipedia)
The 1950 movie version of 'Harvey' starred James Stewart and was one of my childhood favourites, but don't think that this was just a 'kid's film', that it concerned an *adult* who was convinced he had an invisible friend makes an important point about how adult delude themselves as being beyond things that children accept as being 'normal'.
To me, the movie has a lot to say about today's more openness about mental health issues, but also about our ideas about what reality...
At this point I have to stop as, while researching this topic, I discovered that Ryan Renolds is actually starring in a 2024 movie called 'What Are Imaginary Friends?'...Shucks!!! Now while this *is* a kids movie it's too close to my premise for him to do a second movie so close in it's topic as to be thought of as repeating himself...
That said, my vision of a 2025 'Harvey' was a slightly darker adult comedy, somewhere between 'Drop Dead Fred' and 'Donnie Darko'. But I guess this won't happen now. 😟
Postscript: On August 2, 2009, it was revealed that Steven Spielberg had committed to a new adaptation of the play, to be a co-production between 20th Century Fox and DreamWorks, with a screenplay written by Jonathan Tropper. On December 4, 2009, Spielberg announced that he had quit the project, partly due to his inability to find an actor willing and able to play Elwood Dowd.
4. Tom Hardy as The Werewolf
Of all the Universal monster movies the best reimagining of the werewolf story is 1994's 'Wolf' starring Jack Nicolson, so you might say 'job done' there. But I am a big Hammer Horror fan and I'd love to see a modern reboot of this very British take on the classic horror movie.
Hammer's 1961 'Curse of the Werewolf' was not the most successful of the British production company's series of classic horror flicks, BUT it did have the very intriguing casting choice of Oliver Reed as the part of the werewolf!
Unfortunately, this adaption was roundly panned by critics of the time which a is a bit sad given the appearance of Reed. And my only reasoning for a 2025 Tom Hardy remake is to sort of 'put things right', and maybe even kick off a series of Hammer reboots.
If you think of the Gothic werewolf tale melded with Hardy's moody performance in 2017s TV series 'Taboo' (with a pinch of the series 'Penny Dreadful'), then you get an idea of what I'm after!!! 😆
5. Eva Green as 'She'
The movie was pretty much a stapple of weekday afternoon TV when I was growing up (along with movie like 'Journey to the Centre of the Earth and 'The Land that Time Forgot', etc). It was a fun mix of adventure and daring do, exciting action and a tiny bit of what passed for 'sex' on day time TV! 😄
The voluptuous Ulsala Andress was the tit-tular character 😉 of 'she who must be obeyed' and was certainly an attention grabber!
I always wanted these sort of classic adventure stories to get a modern make-over, and for them to be made a little more adult orientated and gritty, and as such - particularly in the case of this movie - I've often mulled over new leads that would be appropriate. One contemporary actress in particular stuck me as a ideal candidate... Eva Green.
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