Remake Hollywood Not 'Videodrome'

I give up. I knew there’d be a tipping point eventually, but I didn’t expect it to involve little red and white plastic pegs and my 4-year-old Godson saying, “B6…Hit!” I surrendered to the idea that there is very little hope for genuine or inspiring creativity coming out of Hollywood while Universal is forging a deal with Hasbro to bring Battleship to the big screen.

Coming Soon to a Theater Near You!

The idea of turning a board game into a movie isn’t earth shattering. Jumanji did it about a fictional game, and there are already deals on the books to bring Ouija Board, Candyland and Monopoly to your local multiplex. But when you mix the “you sunk my carrier” news with the scoop that Disney is making a movie of Tomorrowland as a follow-up to Pirates of the Caribbean, and toss in just a dollop of the ongoing march of mid-80s remakes like the approaching new Videodrome, Red Dawn and Fright Night, we must at least consider prosecuting for fraud anyone in Hollywood who calls themselves “creative.”

There are countless screenwriters throughout Los Angeles laboring long, lonely hours to produce original stories. Most of them are god-awful and deserve to fade into obscurity, but surely some are worthy of production. In fact, a small fraction of them could prove to be the kind of movies that inspire generations — like Raiders of the Lost Ark inspired my peers.

Give some thought to what’s in theaters these days that would ignite a kid’s imagination to want to pick up a pencil and write a short story or to grab a video camera and shoot a short adventure starring action figures. Where’s the next Matrix or Star Wars to blast young minds and behinds out of their seats? Will it be the big screen Land of the Lost? The remake of Bill Murray’s Meatballs? The re-telling of Red Sonja?

Hollywood is so terrified of failure and potential irrelevance right now, so desperate to snag a big opening weekend for any movie produced, and so cynical over the imagination and intelligence of moviegoers that studios rarely reach for anything that’s not a remake, prequel, sequel or based on a TV show, video game comic book, novel or short story. And now you can throw in amusement park rides and board games.

In other words, anything conceived and created originally for the big screen is almost certain never to make it to said screen. That’s tragic because there are some ideas that need to be movies and some concepts that could make legendary films if they’re fostered through the development process — while also making serious scratch for the scared studios.

But those studios aren’t in the business of developing anymore. They’re widget-makers now, filling theaters and DVD shelves with anonymous product that won’t inspire audiences to look back at the source material — let along urge them to imagine what spectacular and moving stories Hollywood could tell one day.

Fortunately, there’s got to be a tipping point coming in which audiences wave off the remakes and demand original material. Maybe there’s still a glimmer of hope that Hollywood professionals who love movies — and there are some out here — will realize that they didn’t sacrifice chunks of their careers to remake Porky’s. That’s when you might start seeing original scripts breaking into the cinema marketplace again.