An Open Letter to the Motion Picture Industry

The Women (1939)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951)

The Fast and the Furious (1955)

The Shaggy Dog (1959)

The Nutty Professor (1963)

The Pink Panther (1963)

The Last Man on Earth (1964)

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965)

The Last House on the Left (1972)

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974)

The Omen (1976)

Halloween (1978)

Friday the 13^th (1980)

Prom Night (1980)

My Bloody Valentine (1981)

The House on Sorority Row (1983)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999)

Dear Motion Picture Industry,

I’d like to start this letter with a little pop quiz. Every one of the seventeen movies listed above have something in common. What do you think it is? Go ahead; take a moment to look over the list and think about it. Here are a few hints to help you out:

First off, it’s not their genre. While it’s heavy on Horror Movies, the list contains Comedies, Dramas, Science Fiction films, Action/Adventure films, and Thrillers.

Do they have a common theme in their plot? Nope. As with the genres, the themes are many and varied.

Did the same person appear in all of them? Again, no. While a couple may have cast members in common, the actors appearing in these films can also be described as, “many and varied.”

Writer? Director? Producer? No, no, and no. Once again, there may be some overlap in the creative teams; but overall, all seventeen come from different people and companies.

Have you gotten to the point where you’re thinking, “Well, what is it? It’s summertime and we’re not supposed to think this hard when we’re off the clock!”

Okay, okay. Here it is: the common thread is that all seventeen of these movies have been remade (and in some cases, ‘re-visioned’) within the last thirteen years…fifteen of them in the last five years. In fact, nine of the seventeen remakes were released in just the last eighteen months. Here’s the list again with the remake dates added:

The Women (1939) (2008)

The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) (2008)

The Fast and the Furious (1955) (2001)

The Shaggy Dog (1959) (2006)

The Nutty Professor (1963) (1996)

The Pink Panther (1963) (2006)

The Last Man on Earth (1964) (2007) (entitled, I Am Legend)

The Flight of the Phoenix (1965) (2004)

The Last House on the Left (1972) (2009)

The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3 (1974) (2009)

The Omen (1976) (2006)

Halloween (1978) (2007)

Friday the 13^th (1980) (2009)

Prom Night (1980) (2008)

My Bloody Valentine (1981) (2009)

The House on Sorority Row (1983) (2009)

Bangkok Dangerous (1999) (2008)

The question with most of these movies is, “Why?” While most of the films on this list are considered ‘fun entertainment’ by significantly large groups of people, they aren’t (with a couple of exceptions) what you’d call Great Cinema. In fact, there are a couple I believe the world would never miss if they were to suddenly vanish from video stores tomorrow.

Don’t get me wrong. I have no problem with a producer or director revisiting a film on which they had to make compromises, or ‘settle,’ due to issues such as a limited budget or studio pressure. I have no problem with these same people updating their work from decades ago with newer technologies (I love the digitally remastered Star Wars movies and episodes of the original Star Trek series). I don’t even have a problem with producers or directors…or even actors… presenting their own adaptation of literary classics that haven’t been produced in a generation or two…as long as they stick to the original story.

No, my issue lies with studios and production companies who bang out a remake just for the sake of a quick buck. These remakes are usually worse than the original movie which, in some cases, wasn’t that great to begin with. In many cases, the remake is actually a ‘re-visioning’ (as opposed to a revision) that is barely recognizable. A good example of this is last year’s version of one of the all-time great Hollywood films; The Day the Earth Stood Still.

Twentieth Century Fox, Academy Award-winning director Robert Wise, and Academy Award-winning script writer Edmund H. North created a near-perfect film when they adapted Harry Bates’ short story, Farewell to the Master, for the big screen. The movie they delivered in 1951 was (and still is) a brilliant blend of science fantasy, speculative fiction, and social commentary, as well as being an allegorical look at the Cold War.

Fast-forward to 2008. 3 Arts Entertainment and Twentieth Century Fox present The Day the Earth Stood Still; scripted by David Scarpa, directed by Scott Derrickson, starring Keanu Reeves and Jennifer Connelly, and billed as, “A remake of the 1951 classic sci-fi film…” However, the title of the movie and the names of some of the characters are where the similarities to the 1951 classic end. Derrickson and Scarpa changed the name of Helen Benson’s son from “Billy” to “Jacob”. The location was moved from Washington D.C. to New York City. Instead of Klaatu escaping from an Army hospital and encountering the Helen Benson character at a boarding house when he is looking for a place to stay, she has been changed to a professor of microbiology at Princeton University who is drafted by the government to deal with the alien visitor and who decides to help him escape government custody. But the most egregious change of all is the plot itself. The original movie had Klaatu observing how humanity is handling nuclear power so that he can pass judgment on whether or not they will be too violent to be allowed to join the interstellar community. The 2008 ‘remake’ has Klaatu judging the damage humanity has done to the planet’s environment and deciding whether or not he will destroy humanity for the sake of saving the Earth, which is one of, “…only a handful of planets in the cosmos that are capable of supporting complex life…” In other words, it’s nothing more than a propaganda piece for the Green movement.

Look, movie moguls, if you wanted to create a sci-fi flick that promotes your favorite agenda, have the cojones to put yourself out there and create something original. Don’t just ride the coattails of a classic work that is loved by millions so you can shove your views down the public’s throats. Unfortunately, The Day the Earth Stood Still is just one example of a growing trend. This coming October, 2929 Productions is releasing an adaptation of the best selling novel, The Road. This version, scripted by Joe Penhall and directed by John Hillcoat, appears to be heading the same direction as The Day the Earth Stood Still. Instead of sticking to a nuclear attack as the apocalyptic event that drives the story’s plot, the trailer for the movie implies that it has been changed to an environmental catastrophe tied to ‘global climate change.’ Once again, you are blatantly using someone else’s work to further your own political agenda. Shame on you!

You supposedly have access to some of the greatest creative minds of the 21^st Century, so use them and be creative. I don’t know if you’re practicing a new form of recycling, if the creative wells have dried up, or if you’ve just plain gotten lazy, but there has been a serious lack of creativity from Hollywood in recent years. Of course, there is one other theory that is gaining ground throughout America; that you’ve been living in your elite little sphere so long you’ve grown arrogant and have nothing but contempt for the intelligence level of the “little people.” Yes, many people are suggesting that you don’t even try to come up with something new because you believe that the “hicks in the fly-over states” aren’t sophisticated enough to understand anything new and will only pay to see something familiar. For your sakes, I certainly hope the latter is not true as there are quite a few up and coming independent filmmakers in those flyover states. Two that come to mind are Troublemaker Studios and Ponderous Productions…both here in the Austin/San Antonio area. Troublemaker already has an international reputation for unique, creative productions, while Ponderous is in the same position Renaissance Pictures was in the mid-80’s. If, Heaven forbid, you have chosen to casually dismiss nearly seventy percent of the population, you can bet they’ll turn to those ‘Indie’ production companies and the dozens others like them that stretch from Arizona to the Carolinas.

Personally, I don’t believe this lack of creativity is due to arrogance on your part. Instead, I believe that the creative filmmakers on both coasts are having their creativity choked off by the ‘bean counters’ calling the shots at the major studios. They don’t care about the filmmakers’ craft or the legacy of a film. Their only concern is the bottom line…the guaranteed ROIC*, the number of Points they have to give to the ‘face’ they hired for the box office draw (whether that ‘face’ is right for the part or not), the residuals the company can get out of foreign distribution and DVD sales. If accountants had been running the studios in the mid-1940’s, It’s a Wonderful Life would probably never have been released (it was a box office disappointment that failed to recoup its $3.8 Million price tag during its first release).

Another example of ‘re-visioning’ is the recent Star Trek blockbuster. It is a great movie…not a great Star Trek movie...a great movie. Period. I loved this movie. The problem is that it should have been made as an original project with unique characters and not as a ‘prequel’ to a franchise with a fictional universe firmly established in hundreds of hours of television and ten feature films. Director J.J. Abrams and writers Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman created a brilliant science fantasy adventure that would easily have stood on its own without completely reinventing the Star Trek universe. Quite frankly, this movie, as an original movie, could very well have been to 2009 what Star Wars was to 1977. It could very well have launched a new franchise that would have placed Abrams, Kurtzman, and Orci alongside Roddenberry and Lucas in sci-fi history. It’s a shame that Paramount and the creative team didn’t have the courage to introduce this story as a unique movie with unique characters to the world instead of using the established Star Trek fan base as a crutch.

So, my dear motion picture industry, I challenge you to restore the creativity to what’s supposed to be a creative industry. Enough with the excessive remakes and ‘re-visionings.’ An occasional remake is okay, but remember: it should be the exception and not the rule. Instead of having your script writers rework old material, encourage them to create something new and exciting. If there is a theme or plot from the past you liked but always felt could have been done better, do it, but make it original and just give the original story a “suggested by” credit. The ball is in your court. Show some courage and have faith in the intelligence of the American public. All I ask is please don’t make a sixth version of Invasion of the Body Snatchers!

Best regards…

* Return On Invested Capital

© 2009 James P. Rice