May 16

Hollywood Remakes – Archived

I have discontinued updating the remakes page and have moved it here as a post just for historical reference.

The Remake Insanity

Filmmakers have been remaking films for years, but over the last few it seems to have reached ridiculous levels.

I am not actually against all remakes. I want to make that very clear. What I want to examine is the difference between a remake for the creativeness or a remake simply to make a buck. Slightly unfair, as I understand all movies are made to make money, it is a business after all. This list is really just a sober reminder of how creatively bankrupt Hollywood seams to have become. I hope that we come through this little fad and start really having a look at some more original ideas.

First I think we need to have a few ground rules:

a) No remakes of foreign films (that just opens a whole other can of worms), this is about Hollywood remaking itself
b) No TV series to film remakes (that is also a whole other list)
c) No made for TV movies, this is about theatrical releases
d) You must be able to list the dates of the original and the remake(s).

This list is by no means complete, if you can think of any that I don’t have here, submit them to the forum, make sure you look at the instructions above. Here they are in no particular order:

War of the Worlds (1953, 2005 and many TV versions)
The Punisher (1989, 2004)
Not of this Earth (1957, 1988, 1995)
Get Carter (1971, 2000)
The Pink Panther (1963, 2006)
The Longest Yard (1974, 2005 and a British remake in 2001)
Fun with Dick and Jane (1977, 2005)
The Hitcher (1986, 2007)
Halloween (1978, 2007)
King Kong (1933, 1976, 2005)
Slueth (1972, 2007)
Psycho (1960, 1998)
The Producers (1968, 2005)
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1971, 2005)
Yours, Mine and Ours (1968, 2005)
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner? (1967, 2005)
Cheaper By The Dozen (1950, 2003)
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (1974, 2003)
The Amityville Horror (1979, 2005)
The Shaggy Dog (1959, 2006)
My Friend Flicka (1943, 2006)
Lassie (1943, 1994, 2005)
The Poseidon Adventure (1972, 2006)
Charlotte’s Web (1973, 2006)
Last Holiday (1950, 2006)
When a Stranger Calls (1979, 2006)
The Omen (1976, 2006)
The Hills Have Eyes (1977, 2006)
The Hills Have Eyes 2 (1985, 2007)
Planet of the Apes (1968, 2001)
Dawn of the Dead (1978, 2004)
Night of the Living Dead (1968, 1990, 2006)
Day of the Dead (1985, 2008)
Ocean’s Eleven (1960, 2001)
Cape Fear (1962, 1991)
Miracle on 34th Street (1947, 1994)
Red Dragon (1986 as Manhunter, 2002)
The Fog (1980, 2005)
Assault on Precinct 13 (1976, 2005)
The Three Musketeers (1921, 1933, 1939, 1948, 1951, 1973, 1993 and others)
Hairspray (1988, 2007)
Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956, 1978, 1993, 2007)
The Thing (1951, 1982)
Invaders from Mars (1953, 1986)
Dracula (1931, 1958, 1979, 1992 and many other versions)
Frankenstein (1931, 1994 and many other versions)
Rollerball (1975, 2002)
The Nutty Professor (1963, 1996)
The Absent Minded Professor (1961, 1997 as Flubber)
The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951, 2008)
His Girl Friday (1940, 1988 as Switching Channels)
The Women (1939, 2008)
Prom Night (1980, 2008)

…and what does the future hold for Hollywood? More of the same…

2009 Child’s Play (1988)
2008 The Incredible Shrinking Man (1957)
2009 The Big Chill (1983) – Oh, the humanity!
2009 The Karate Kid (1984)
2009 Barbarella (1968) – at least Rose McGowan is hot!
2009 Street Fighter (1994) – they say it is not a remake.
2009 Escape from New York (1981)
2009 The Evil Dead (1981)
2009 The Birds (1963) – because remaking Hitchcock has been so successful in the past!
2009 A Nightmare on Elm Street (1984)
2009 Masters of the Universe (1987) – HAHAHAHAHAHA!
2010 Friday the 13th (1980)
2010 Clash of the Titans (1981) – is this really necessary???
2010 Logan’s Run (1976)
2010 Dune (1984) – Keep Lynch away from it!
2010 Fantastic Voyage (1966) – Wasn’t InnerSpace already a kind of remake?
2009 The Hidden (1987)
2011 Captain America (1990)
(unknown release date) The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975)
(unknown release date) Mother’s Day (1980)
(unknown release date) Candyman (1992) – that’s right, we are now remaking 90s films!!!

Update: (14th July, 2008) I have just read that the remake of Clash of the Titans is going to be directed by Louis Leterrier (“The Incredible Hulk”, the “Transporter” films) from a screenplay by Lawrence Kasdan (“The Big Chill”, “The Empire Strikes Back”, “Raiders of the Lost Ark”, “Silverado” etc.). This might not be such a bad idea after all.

Another Update: We have reached a new benchmark! We are now remaking 1990s movies! I am always interested in seeing how close we can get to the original before we remake it. I was sure that we wouldn’t remake films past the 80s because surely that wasn’t long enough ago….I was wrong. What’s next? Do we remake The Dark Knight or better yet we could remake The Watchmen?!?!?!?

May 15

Geek Actually Episode 36 – Live Long and Prosper

Geek ActuallyHosts: David McVay, Jacob Oberman and Nicholas McVay

Geek Actually is brought to you by listeners, just like you. Thanks for your donations. If you wish to make a donation, go to geekactually.com.

David is joined in studio by Jacob Oberman and Nicholas McVay for a Trekking good time.

First of all apologise for the missed episode. David still has a wicked cold.

Tech News: Google’s anti trust case, Sweden’s Pirate Party and Apple fires back at Microsoft with new ads.

Film News: Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde gets made again and again and maybe even again.

Jacob tells us about “Wake in Fright” and David and Jacob review the new “Star Trek” movie and the Italian masterpiece, “Gomorrah”.

Nicholas “Little Geek” McVay joins David for his reviews of “Star Trek” and “Wolverine”.

As always this episode carries an explicit tag due to small amounts of bad language.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Just a reminder, if you have any comments about the episodes please leave them in the comments field below or email us using the contact link above. If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review as we are trying to get on the featured list and every review helps. Your comments (good or bad) help us improve the show.

(Post edited 24th May, 2009)

May 12

An Apology

Hi All,

Sorry about the show this week, what a mess. First of all we are a little internet connection challenged at the moment and that is causing its own collection of problems. However we didn’t get a show up this week because I have come down with a cold and on recording day I woke up to the feeling of daggers in my throat. Although I am still a little under the weather, we will be recording a show this week. I have to say I am very disappointed about last weeks show because I really wanted to talk about Star Trek, but it will be in this weeks show.

Once again, I do apologise about the show not happening last week, but I do have a good excuse and I can bring a note from my mom if you would like me to :-)

Regards,

David McVay
Head Geek, Geek Actually

May 04

Happy Star Wars Day!

May the 4th be with you!

Happy Star Wars Day to all the geeks in the world. If you don’t know about Star Wars Day, here is an extract from Wikipedia:

“May 4 is called Star Wars Day because of a pun or play on words based on the similarity between “May the 4th be with you” and “May the force be with you”, a phrase often spoken in the Star Wars movies.”

For the full article click here.

May 02

Geek Actually Episode 35 – Mummy is a Geek

Geek ActuallyHosts: David McVay, Jacob Oberman and Nicholas McVay

Geek Actually is brought to you by listeners, just like you. Thanks for your donations. If you wish to make a donation, go to geekactually.com.

David is joined in studio by Jacob Oberman and Nicholas McVay for a news lite, review heavy episode. Ben Straw from Ben’s Tech Show has sent us some kind words via voice mail and his opinions on “Monsters Vs Aliens” and “Fast and Furious”.

News is kept at a minimum today as David and Jacob both have colds. But we do look at Steve Jobs’ health and what Hollywood plans to remake next.

Jacob reviews the new Australian animated film, “Mary and Max” by Adam Elliot and gives it positive praise. David reviews Hugh Jackman’s new “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” and it gets a shaky thumbs up. At least it’s better than “X-Men 3?. And David and Nicholas discuss the new Steve Martin film, “Pink Panther 2?, Nicholas enjoyed it and David thought it had moments, overall better than expected.

To finish off we play a small clip from the new “Star Trek” movie as a bit of a sneak peak for next weeks episode.

As always this episode carries an explicit tag due to small amounts of bad language.

Listen or download it here or subscribe to it on iTunes

Podcast: Play in new window | Download

Just a reminder, if you have any comments about the episodes please leave them in the comments field below or email us using the contact link above. If you are an iTunes user, please leave a review as we are trying to get on the featured list and every review helps. Your comments (good or bad) help us improve the show.

(This post edited 24th May, 2009)

May 01

A Geek Actually Update

Hi All,

Just a quick post to explain what is happening here at Geek Central.

First, you’ll notice that this weeks episode is late. We are recording today and it will be up on the feed tomorrow (Saturday AEST).

Second, we are losing our internet connection today (the reason for the late upload) because we are upgrading our connection. We are having a new phone line put in and a faster, better internet connection. The reason for this? We are going to start streaming the show live (on video) in June and our existing connection counts up and down streams in the data allowance. You can imagine that this would just kill us in charges when we start streaming. So this update is a must happen but it does mean that we will be offline for a couple of weeks. I will still have access to email, Twitter and Facebook (god bless iPhone!) during this time and the show will still go ahead as usual. I have organised an alternate site for the upload.

Due to the lack of internet during this time, Jacob Oberman and I will be holding down the fort as we won’t be able to Skype in any other guests.

Stick with us, Jacob and I have been discussing what we are going to do on the show for the next two weeks and we have some fun ideas. The only word of caution is that the show may not always be exactly on time every week because we are relying on the kindness of others to upload.

In the meantime, please continue to support the show by sending us feedback here and on iTunes and if you are feeling really kind, you can contribute to the show using the link on the front page. All donations over $10 will get a mention on the show (including a plug for your website if you have one).