WHY?!?! Unnecessary Remake Hell

Is there nothing new out there? I think this is a common question when it comes to the film industry. A very common question. With only maybe 80 some sales a year being spec sales, the majority of Hollywood’s slate is adaptations and remakes. I’m on board with adaptations – though, sometimes I wonder how “this” movie got made, while “that book” is so much better and kept off the screen. Remakes, though, are another question. Some things should just be left alone.

Today, during my daily scroll of DoneDealPro this morning, I noticed that three out of the first five sales listed were remakes. Three out of five. That’s 60% for all you non-math whizzes out there.

Remake number 1: ARTHUR, about a booze-hound playboy who stands to earn a lot of money if he marries a certain girl in a certain family, but falls for someone much “beneath” him. Dudley Moore and Liza Minnelli starred in the 1981 Oscar Award winning original (Best Supporting Actor, Best Original Song), nominated for best screenplay. Russell Brand, yep, the FORGETTING SARAH MARSHALL guy, is attached to star in the remake. Can you spell Oscar Nomination? Neither can I in this instance.

Remake number 2: TOTAL RECALL. Aaaaahhhnnnold! A man buys a virtual vacation to Mars and winds up fighting as a special agent to overthrow a Martian depot in reality – or does he? OK, remaking Arnold? Hasn’t he enacted some legislation in California against that by now? Also, really? REALLY?

Remake number 3 (and the most upsetting): THE NEVERENDING STORY. Who grew up in the 80s or 90s and didn’t watch this a dozen times? I still wish I had a giant flying dog to take me everywhere and be my best friend. This is a classic; it’d be like remaking THE PRINCESS BRIDE (Onyx would come after that producer so fast, he wouldn't know what hit him). This is a great movie, and I can guarantee now, 100%, that whatever hits theaters a few years from now will be beyond disappointing in comparison.

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Can’t well-enough just be left alone?

What, When, Where this Weekend - Birdsong, Crossing Over, Marco Ferreri, Cronenberg retrospective

What, When, Where is a weekly guide to select screenings, discussions and events in the NYC-area of interest to screenwriters. Have an event you'd like to see listed here? Give us a heads-up at info@screenwritersleague.com.

- The IFC Center is running a screening series of "Cronenberg Classics" starting this weekend and running over the next couple months. I'm very eager to see Videodrome and The Fly on the big screen. The full lineup is available here.

- BAM is reviving the criminally overlooked Marco Ferreri film Dillinger is Dead for a limited time. Opens Friday.

Opening this week...

BIRDSONG, written and directed by Albert Serra


Premise: The film follows the three wise men as they journey to pay their respects and bring gifts to Jesus Christ.

Playing at: Anthology

Looks pretty thin on plot, but oh so, so pretty. (Check out a clip here.) Really want to see this in theaters - I'm afraid it'll be completely lost on a TV screen.

CROSSING OVER, written and directed by Wayne Kramer


Premise: A multi-character drama centered around the issue of illegal immigration in the United States.

Playing at: All over.

Harrison Ford and Sean Penn - this is one of those rare films that will bring me in on star power alone. I have to say I'm getting bored with the "multi-character drama centered around the issue of (insert social crisis of choice)" genre already, though. I'll be waiting patiently for Don Cheadle to show up in a cameo somewhere.

What are you doing/seeing this weekend?

Choke *cough* *hack* *urg* *vomit*

Cake Man and I desperately tried to suffer through Choke last night, but we just weren't able to do it. I'm not sure if it was because of the flat jokes, awful dialogue, jumbled mess of thin subplots, completely unsympathetic characters, the juvenile-feeling naughtiness for naughtiness' sake or a combination of all of the above that ruined this one for us. I watch plenty of bad movies, but this one really disappointed me. It FELT like it could have been really good - what went wrong?


I came into the movie expecting something along the lines of Fight Club (as I'm sure a lot of viewers did). I know not to expect David Fincher-like production values from a directorial debut by an actor turned writer/director, but there was just so much that was godawful in this movie that I had to wonder if some fault stems from the source material. Palahniuk is a writer who often pushes the line for shock value - but any attempts at edginess in the film version of Choke come off more childish than anything. I haven't read the book yet, but the movie makes me want to.

Ty Burr's review at the Boston Globe seems to point the finger at writer/director Clegg:

Great swatches of narration have been imported from book to screen, and while Rockwell delivers these with sardonic ease, the approach is still the opposite of cinema. Palahniuk fans will get what they came for and come away scratching their heads, because Gregg has mistaken the literal for the literary. He has fashioned an amiable Xerox that stubbornly refuses to shock like the real thing.

I guess this is my question: Are all of the Choke's faults present in the novel, or was the movie just a terrible adaptation? Can anyone who's read the book already shine a bit of light on the topic?

The Writing Week (Vol. 2) part 60 - Cracking the Ending and Writing for A Sequel

I should have finished my first draft of the Roman-army spec this morning, but my sleep cycle was off. These past few weeks, I've been waking up at 7:30 (an hour before I used to) to get a writing session in before work. That way, if I find myself detoured by drinks after work, I don't have to worry about the day being a total loss (that happened more often than I'd like. Ask Zombie. Or Onyx). This morning, though, I woke up in the middle of the night and tossed and turned for two hours before falling asleep again at 7. Probably should have gotten up and started typing, but the brain just wasn't working.

Regardless, I'll wrap it tonight. Usually, I go into a script knowing how it will end. (John August recently had an interesting post about deciding which project to write. His advice: write the one with the best ending, as it's the one you've thought out the most.) There's something about knowing where you have to get in your spec that guides the writing process from the very beginning, even if you know little in between. I find it helps to know what that last image will be, even if I wind up changing it along the way.

This time, though, I had no idea. Well, OK, not "no" idea, but little. I knew what Act Three would be, and damn, was I stoked to write it. But I hit a wall - in outlining, in writing, in thinking about writing or outlining - when it came to the final scene(s). I just didn't know how it would all wrap itself up. There were a few loose ends I wanted to leave untied for interest's sake, basically a new beginning type of ending that leave the possibilities open for further exploration of the characters (read: I'm a shameless whore writing with sequels in mind; so sue me).

Finally, on Sunday, I cracked it. The ideas worked themselves together in an imperfect puzzle at first, like a Rubix cube that's all right but for two sides. Then, I let everything wiggle into place, and I just want to get home and finish the thing. I think it works. And, let me clarify here, I do not advocate writing purely for the sequel. It's a dangerous approach, especially for a new writer writing specs. I'm well aware of that. But I do believe that there is little harm in setting up a solid spec that has franchise potential for a sequel. That doesn't mean leaving everything ambiguous or unanswered. No, a script should be able to stand alone and leave the audience wanting more, while not keeping them so in the dark that they need another movie to figure it out. I answer what I need to; I just offer routes for more playtime with the characters and the world later if people want. I think it's reasonable if it can work.

First thing's first though: finish this draft.

And The Winner Is...

OK, I'm sure you've watched the Oscars or read a re-cap online or read this morning's paper to see who won or heard about it at the water cooler or... You get the idea. You've heard the winners. If, somehow, you've managed to avoid learning who took home statuettes at the 81st Academy Awards, here's the list of winners.

Picture: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Actor: Sean Penn, "Milk"
Actress: Kate Winslet, "The Reader"
Director: Danny Boyle, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Foreign-Language Film: "Departures," Japan
Original Song: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Original Score: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Jean Hersholt Humanitarian Award: Jerry Lewis
Film Editing: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Sound Mixing: "Slumdog Millionaire"
Sound Editing: "The Dark Knight"
Visual Effects: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Documentary, Short Subject: "Smile Pinki"
Documentary Feature: "Man on Wire"
Supporting Actor: Heath Ledger, "The Dark Knight"
Short Film: "Spielzeugland"
Makeup: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Costume: "The Duchess"
Art Direction: "The Curious Case of Benjamin Button"
Animated Short Film: "La Maison en Petits Cubes"
Animated Feature: "WALL-E"
Adapted Screenplay: Simon Beaufoy, "Slumdog Millionaire"
Original Screenplay: Dustin Lance Black, "Milk"
Supporting Actress: Penélope Cruz, "Vicky Cristina Barcelona"

No real surprises... sort of. WALL-E was a given (though part of me felt it was wise to expect a Kung Fu Panda upset). Screenplay categories contained no real shocker or disappointments. Slumdog, as Zombie just pointed out, took a TON of awards, with Curious Case of Benjamin Button taking a very large share of the remaining ones. Heath Ledger got what everyone expected to be his award for his awesome work as the Joker.

Where I got pissed, though, was with the Best Actor category. Yes, Mickey Rourke might have played Mickey Rourke, and Sean Penn's win (along with Dustin Lance Black's) provided the industry with a platform for gay rights, which is fantastic. But I was pulling for Mickey despite both of those reasons. Even if he did play himself, you know what? That takes balls. He went into some of the darkest parts of his life and his screw ups, unearthing much of what has happened behind the camera to him in his life. It takes a lot of courage to accept and reveal your own faults the way he did, and I have to give anybody who can do that major props. Maybe he didn't transform himself into a completely different person the way that Penn did, but what he did was just as emotionally charged and brave, if not more so.

You had my vote, Mickey.

Slumdog Millionaire screenplay now available

Motion Picture
Director
Adapted Screenplay
Cinematography
Sound Mixing
Original Score
Original Song
Film Editing

Congratulations to Slumdog Millionaire for cleaning house at the Oscars last night.

You can now download the screenplay for free by clicking here. (Thanks again to SimplyScripts.) Get it while you can!

Trailer Trash XXXV: The Screaming Skull (1958)

"The tortured ghost who claimed vengeance in the bride's bedroom!"

Quick summary: Ex-wife dies in freak accident. Man takes new wife to site of the accident on their honeymoon. (Worst. Honeymoon. Ever.) New wife is haunted by ghost of dead wife. Or is she? That's The Screaming Skull in a nutshell.

The title of this movie reminds me of one of Jack Handey's Deep Thoughts passages:

If trees could scream, would we be so cavalier about cutting them down? We might, if they screamed all the time, for no good reason.

... which, in turn, makes me think of a much scarier version of this movie, where it's just shots of various skulls backed by a soundtrack of people screaming at the top of their lungs. That'd make me jump, at least the first few times.

You know, you could make any movie at least a bit scary with random quick cuts to skulls and screaming. (Something like this old YouTube video, actually.) This would even work for old movies. Take Casablanca:

Rick: If that plane leaves the ground and you're not with him, you'll regret it. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but soon and for the rest of your -


AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!

See what I mean? Terrifying, right??

On to the trailer silliness:



Did people usually die during scary movies in the 50s? I'm curious if anyone was ever able to cash in on that free burial. And I'm glad they specify that the death had to be from fright. I'd hate to think very old, stingy people would go see it to save a few dollars on funerals.

1950s Guy #1: "Have you heard of that movie Screaming Skull?"
1950s Guy #2: "Yeah, I think so. Isn't that movie where old people go to die?"

I wonder if that offer still stands? Is there an expiration date? I can't see anyone dying of fright during this movie in this day and age, but I wouldn't rule out Death by Boredom.



"See! The revisionization of a woman scorned! See! The vengeful violence of the undead!"

Trailer Trash is a weekly tribute to oddball, cheesy and often just plain terrible movie trailers. Writers: These movies got made... so can yours! You can read through our archive by clicking here.