Remakes Galore

[Misawa]

Remakes. Not a fan. They are entirely unneeded in most cases, but there are a couple of exceptions. I have only seen two remakes that are better than the original film, The Fly and John Carpenter's The Thing, which was adapted from a novel anyway, and is in fact more faithful than the original adaptation.

From memory, I've compiled a list of films from 2008 and 2009 that are remakes, just to see what percentage of mainstream theatrical releases are not original flicks:

I am Legend
Day of the Dead
Prom Night
Friday the 13th
My Bloody Valentine
Halloween 2
Sorority Row (The House on Sorority Row)
The Last House on the Left
The Day the Earth Stood Still
Journey to the Center of the Earth
A Nightmare on Elm Street
The Eye
Quarantine
Shutter

And there were many more over the last two years - this is just a few. Still to come, next year I believe, is even a remake of Hitchcock's The Birds, courtesy of Michael Bay's company Platinum Dunes, that's never (and seemingly intends not to) produces anything original, and pretty sums up Bay's talent as a film-maker.

If you can believe it Ridley Scott's Alien was getting the remake treatment, and may still be - producers are currently trying to web out an origins story rather than a remake. The same goes for Predator, which was going to be remade, then suddenly (and thankfully) became a second sequel to be written and directed by Robert Rodriguez (one of my favourite directors), titled Predators, and they are trying to get Schwarzenegger involved to reprise his role as Dutch from the original. That could be fantastic.

And if you can even believe this: plans were made to remake Scream. Not even fifteen years old. Luckily, it's turned into a brand new trilogy - Scream 4, 5, and 6 are on their way in the coming years. I didn't care for the third film, but if Wes Craven is going to direct the fourth installment, it could be decent.

On a rather hypocritical note, I am in the process of writing the screenplay to a remake of a cult horror film. I can't say which though.

[LoveToStack]

I must concur that all of those remakes are garbage, on their own and especially in comparison to the originals. I agree 100%.
I hope they don't touch Alien or Predator, not so much predator but Alien. That AVP film was just a crap thing to associate Alien with, why can't they just learn from that. A prequel is totally uncalled for; I personally always liked the aspect of mystery that came with Alien.
The Scream films you mentioned, are they following on from the last Scream or are they going down any side routes, prequels etc?

[Misawa]

Continuous. They are getting a whole new group of dumb teenagers at a new high school to be slaughtered by Ghostface, and are trying to get Courtney Cox-Arquette and David Arquette to cameo in the first film of the new trilogy.

You say you hope they don't, but I'm afraid both projects have already been greenlit. Predators is official and so is the Alien film, but it has no title or story yet, and it's not been decided on whether or not it's going to be a prequel or remake. Out of the two, let's pray for a prequel.

[Neversoft]

I consider the best and only good remake to be Peter Jackson's King Kong. I cringe at the thought of The Birds being remade, and I can't believe they remade Psycho and The Wicker Man. Whats the point?

[Misawa]

The Psycho remake was especially pointless - it was a shot-for-shot copy - and Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates? I don't think it could get any worse.

I thought Peter Jackson's King Kong was fairly decent, but I still prefer the original.