It is a truth passed down from generation to generation amongst Hollywood’s glittering elite. There’s no reason to make something if you can remake something. Hollywood film executives are willing to remake or reboot any film or franchise in the pursuit of artistic fulfilment*.
From tat like The Day The Earth Stood Still to horror classics like Dracula, it’s nigh-on impossible to escape the pervasive influence of the Hollywood remake in modern cinema. Hollywood is even willing to remake remakes and reboot reboots. One need only look at the treatment of The Incredible Hulk & Spiderman to see that Hollywood’s pursuit of film-making perfection** is a rolling juggernaut of epic proportions.
These big-money remakes of classics usually focus on films and characters that are omnipresent in the minds of the public, encouraging a sense of anticipation as idiots clamber over one-another to see the first teaser trailer on Youtube, while cynics raise their flared nostrils skywards and sniff loudly that it’s never going to be as good as the original.
Even the ‘modern classics’ aren’t safe. Those films that people loved as children for being cheese-filled romps full of dance sequences and genuinely awful dialogue are being recreated for the Glee generation. Just look at Footloose, a film so terrible the first time around that both Kenny Loggins & Kevin Bacon still have night terrors where they’re being chased around a small town by the blood-vomiting,?putrefying corpse of John Lithgow. Now it is the turn of 1991 Surf ‘Em Up, Point Break to fall into the crosshairs of the Hollywood snipers.
Say what you want about the original Point Break; it’s not terribly good but it’s not terribly terrible. It is, without a doubt, one of those films that people remember fondly until they sit down to watch it one night and realise that they’d rather be face down in a shell-hole being stabbed in the back by a rusty bayonet than watching Keanu Reeves and Patrick Swayze play some hard-surfing, hard-loving, hard-men with Gary Busey thrown in to really ramp up the crazy factor.
Therefore, it’s the perfect film for Hollywood’s razor-taloned vultures to get involved with.
The remake has been picked up by Warner Bros & Alcon Entertainment who seem keen to get the film cranked out as quickly as possible, presumably in order to give it that rough, unprepared, ill-conceived notion that runs through most modern cinema. Yes, it really is a golden*** generation.
The film doesn’t have a director yet but movie-goers should have no fear. It already has a screenplay by Kurt Wimmer. Kurt Wimmer is the man behind 2010’s Angelina Jolie vehicle Salt. A statement released by Alcon Entertainment said, amongst other things:
?Kurt?s take infuses the story and characters with new twists and settings. we're very excited to be in business with Kurt, and Michael DeLuca, Chris Taylor, and John Baldecchi.?
This is Kurt Wimmer the man who- in case you missed it- wrote Salt, one of the least original films ever made by human hands. Luckily for Wimmer it would have been the least original film ever made but Tom Cruise had to drop out of the part and it was hastily re-written for Angelina Jolie.
Anyone unfamiliar with Wimmer’s work should watch any Steven Seagal film, replace the strong male protagonist with a strong female protagonist and imagine a twist that’s as insultingly blatant as asking a young police constable to hold your passport while you beat his grandmother about the head using his own truncheon.
We can only assume that these are the twists to which the Alcon Statement refers. We can only hope that the new Point Break will follow Salt’s lead and include an obvious set-up for a sequel which it will never get.
*Cash
**Money
***Bullion
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McGibbon says
nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo.
Why do they need to re-make this, and why the fuck do they need another script, they have one already and they made a film out of it. My young manhood is about to receive another kick in the knackers. Godamnit
Kev says
Well said that man!
They’re talking (sh!te) about remaking The Crow too, is nothing sacred?
Note to the Glee/Look-at-Me! Generation: Get your own films and keep your scabby unimaginative little fingers off ours!