Can 'Ishtar: The Musical' be far away?

General Motors has been getting all the headlines for its collapse into bankruptcy, but when it comes to creative bankruptcy, no one can match the track record of Hollywood.

If you ever wanted to prove that Hollywood is running on fumes, having completely run out of new ideas, all you have to do is read the trade papers each day and try to keep up with the deluge of announcements of projects based on old books and movies. What's really scary is that people now feel completely free to rob the cradle, pitching remake ideas for movies that haven't been on the video shelves long enough to build up a nice fuzzy glow of nostalgia.

Here's how bad things have gotten. EW reports that Kevin Williamson has approached Courteney Cox Arquette and David Arquette about appearing in a new trilogy of "Scream" movies, which of course were themselves a sort of satire of older horror films. Meanwhile, Variety says Columbia Pictures has put a screenwriter to work on a "contemporized" remake of "Total Recall," the 1990 sci-fi hit that starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Oh, and speaking of contemporizing -- the Hollywood Reporter reveals that Emile Hirsch is at work with director Catherine Hardwicke on a new version of "Hamlet" that will take the form of a modern-day suspense thriller.

MGM, which already has remakes of "Robo Cop," "Poltergeist" and "Red Dawn" in development, has announced that its redoing the 1983 comedy "Valley Girl" as a Romeo-and-Juliet-style musical. Columbia just bought a pitch "re-imagining" the old Tom Swift adventure novels while Fox is planning a remake of the 1985 teen comedy "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" as a vehicle for Miley Cyrus.

Where will it end? Can a remake of "Gigli" be just around the corner? It's pretty obvious that Hollywood simply follows the easiest, most easily marketable road to riches. Just look at this summer's lineup: After being treated to origin story versions of "Star Trek" and "X-Men," we're about to receive a big screen "re-imagining" of the old "Land of the Lost" series as well as a remake of "The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3" and a sequel to "Transformers."

Except for Pixar, which has enjoyed a remarkable run of success creating original stories, every other studio in town has turned itself into a used car dealership, busily scouring its back lot for junkers, betting that, with a fresh coat of paint, it can turn them into sleek new race cars. 

That's my take. What about yours? Do you still crave originality when you go to the multiplex? Or is re-imagining and contemporizing enough to satisfy your moviegoing desires?

Comments

[dave]

Well, considering 1990 was almost 20 years ago... it may be that we're all just getting old, lol.

I'm really not interested in remakes, but whatever floats their boats.

[Griff]

I'll concede nearly every point you make here (I am particularly bemused by the prospect of a "contemporized" remake of the 2084-set TOTAL RECALL), but I would respectfully point out that "Tom Swift" is somewhat different from the other properties you cite. Created in 1910 by early book packager Edward Stratemeyer, the famed boy scientist character certainly hasn't been overexposed in filmed entertainment, anyway; save for two ill-conceived busted pilots (one of which never aired), the Tom Swift character has never been adapted for feature films or television.

Fox came tantalizingly close in the late '60s. Gene Kelly was going to direct a big-budget roadshow TOM SWIFT film -- sources differ as to whether it would have been a musical or an adventure/comedy -- after completing HELLO, DOLLY! John Gregory Dunne's book about Fox in 1967 discusses the movie, already in pre-production, to an extent, and Dunne even visited an aircraft hangar where a gigantic version of Tom Swift's airship was being built. The costly picture was cancelled after the dismal failure of Fox's other late '60s roadshow attractions.

"Tom Swift" may or may not be a good bet for the big screen, but if it eventually gets made, at least it won't be a remake.

[Anthony]

Pixar isn't immune to producing sequels. They have Toy Story 3 coming in 2010 and Cars 2 in the following year. Sequels and remakes are not necessarily bad. But they are short cuts that cater to pre-sold audiences which threaten genuinely creative film making.

[Brian C.]

So pathetic how Hollywood has fallen. Guess I missed the world screaming for that Total Recall remake. I can already tell you that the remake of Pelham 123 won't compare to the original with Walter Mathau. My friends wonder why I don't go and see many movies anymore....it's simple, there aren't any good ones out there.

[K]

Shakespeare reused material all the time. And really, how many plots are there? What's original? This is where formalism comes in. It's what you do with the plot that counts. So remake Psycho, Valley Girl, Red Dawn, do whatever you want. Just make it good. Hollywood itself has been remaking movies forever, I'm surprised this is treated as news, especially in Los Angeles. Showboat for example was remade three times, twice by Universal and once by MGM. My parent's favorite is the 1951 one but the critical favorite is the 1936 one by Universal. Advice to movie studios: if you want to reuse a plot but don't want to be accused of stealing anything, call it an "hommage" ;)

[BCrumpacker]

MADE BY ZOMBIES FOR ZOMBIES: In the land of totally unnecessary remakes of songs and movies, why NOT an Ishtar remake? Although long and painfully slow, it has its funny moments, like swinging Dustin Hoffman giving inept Warren Beatty advice on how to score with girls. The dreadful Xanadu is now a Broadway musical; so remakes of other turkeys like Roller Boogie, Can't Stop the Music, Rhinestone, Star!, At Long Last Love, etc. may follow. By the way, thanks SO much to HBO for overcharging us to dig them up and rerun them 24/7. But where will we find another brilliant beauty like Isabelle Adjani? Perhaps Marion Cotillard? Not that the studios would know what to do with her. bc

[Zeke Steiner]

Reminds me of the joke from Woody Allen's standup routine that Noel Coward had bought the rights to My Fair Lady and was removing the music and lyrics and turning it back into Pygmalion.

[James Keeline]

Griff is on the mark about the 1966-69 Tom Swift project at 20th Century Fox. Having either spoken with or corresponded with some people involved in the project or reading letters from earlier researchers who did the same, it seems important to take the John Gregory Dunne book, THE STUDIO, with a few grains of salt. Some things were hyped up for their dramatic effect.

Perhaps Boeing was involved in early design evaluations of the "Aeroship" for the film but it was not built by them. The prime contractor was PDG of Rose Hill, Kansas, with the 150x33' gasbag built by Ponca Canvas of Topeka. Some parts appear to have been made in Los Angeles. The test assembly of one of the two Aeroships occurred in Kansas in 1969. Two were made because while one was filming, the second one could be trucked to the next location in Europe. Some of the Aeroship parts survive in my collection but are in need of restoration.

However, I think the press release, and therefore the Variety article, was in error in characterizing the 1960s project as a musical. Although Gene Kelly was involved as director for both this and HELLO, DOLLY!, the project was not intended to be a musical. The script is rather long even for a film of this type. It does not have mentions of musical numbers nor even room for them because of the length. Further, when I wrote to Mr. Kelly to ask about his recollections of the project around 1990, I was fortunate to receive a response in the form of a telephone call. He confirmed then that it was not to be a musical.

The 1960s project had two versions of a screenplay written plus some pre-production art and the two Aeroships. Key people were selected for the producer, director, art director, and lead. However, no film was shot to the limit of my ability to research it. Fox was in a bit of a decline at the time and the whole business of roadshow releases with limited engagements and presold tickets was fading away by 1970. They really only had time to handle one roadshow and HELLO, DOLLY! was ready to go but they needed a director with musical experience so Kelly was tapped. Producer Frank McCarthy and Mr. Kelly were unable to get their schedules in sync again so the project was dropped.

Other reasons for the project failing were related to the large cost at the time when Fox was on shaky ground. A couple years later they sold off their backlot property and much of their prop inventories at auction. The other problem was that one of the Aeroships was badly damaged in a Kansas wind storm. These, combined with the problems of Mr. Kelly and Mr. McCarthy's schedules and the impracticality of roadshow releases in the 1970s, led Fox to drop the project.

The person who obtained the film option from the Stratemeyer Syndicate, Barry M. Kirk, next took the property to Levy-Gardner-Laven. Two scripts were considered, one for the first series of books and another for the second Tom Swift Jr. series. However, these projects did not go anywhere.

Of all of the projects to try to put Tom Swift on film or TV from 1914 to the present day, the 1960s Fox project was perhaps the most developed and interesting. Part of the appeal for me is the setting circa 1908-1910 of the first series (1910-1941) and a long airship flight. I know that the Baby Boomers were mostly exposed to the Tom Swift Jr. series (1954-1971) and those are good books but the inventions are even more improbable than those of the original despite the Syndicate's consultation with science and aviation advisers.

I hope that this Columbia project will see production and release and that it will be a positive reflection of Tom Swift. It has great potential if it can be realized. Being true to one of the first two series would not hurt either. Failure to do so could lead to an ambivalent reaction from the 20-100 million people who read at least one of the books.

Back in 1995 I wrote "Tom Swift on the Silver Screen" for a conference presentation. I am now updating it to reflect the information I have obtained since then as well as the new Columbia project.

James D. Keeline

[wcmartell]

That version of THE MALTESE FALCON that's a classic is version #3, and all 3 films were made within ten years. Chandler's FAIRWELL, MY LOVELY was made and remade two years apart. I believe that classic version of THE WIZARD OF OZ was #12.

Same as it ever was.

It's not a shortage of new ideas, it's a shortage of balls. No one wants to gamble on a new idea when they can point to that old idea that made a bundle... and if remade will probably make a bundle again.

The problem is - soon we're like that last frozen wasteland bus crash survivor who starts out eating his foot and keeps eating until there's nothing left to eat. (What right has my head to call itself me?) Hollywood needs originals so they have something to remake later... and one of the reasons why we see movies is the novelty. In this DVD age, I can pop in TOTAL RECALL or SCREAM and watch it again. So remakes not only may be box office flops *because* they are remakes (been there, done that) but they may also damage the DVD biz. We don't live in THE MALTESE FALCON world anymore, where films were *only* in cinemas. Once released, they may end up on the B side of the ticket... or come back if the star suddenly became hot, but usually they were shived back in the vault, and that new version 2 years later was somewhat novel because the old version was not available.

I think the remake thing is going to bite them in the butt big time.

But, then, my last assignment was a horror remake, and it's nice to earn a living.

- Bill