Hollywood Goes Full-Retard for Remakes

Over the past few years, it’s become glaringly apparent that Hollywood is suffering from a crippling idea shortage. We’ve seen a fourth Indiana Jones, a third Underworld, a third Mummy, a fourth Scary Movie, a fifth Saw… it’s pretty pathetic. Of course, the endless sequel thing isn’t completely abnormal. Jaws, Friday the 13th and Nightmare on Elm Street all saw countless followups through the ’80s and ’90s. However, what is a new and very annoying trend in Hollywood is the needless remaking of movies and TV shows.

There are two varieties of remakes being made, and so the criticism comes from two different directions. The first are remakes of things that truly sucked when they first came out. Just this week, for example, it was announced that the film Clue is being remade. Clue! The film based on the board game that nobody plays anymore is coming back to theaters, and is being directed by the guy who directed Pirates of the Caribbean. All three of them! Clue isn’t the only culprit — they’re apparently going to remake Total Recall and Melrose Place (since the new 90210 has been such a runaway success?).

The other variety of remake is far more troubling, and far more rampant. Hollywood is taking classics — classics that are dear to our hearts and should never be f**ked with — and giving them a 21st century spit shine. This has already happened a bunch (Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, etc.) and today, with the announcement that The Neverending Story is being made again, the sad tradition continues.

Why does Hollywood continue to do this? Name ONE REMAKE that has been better than the original. You can’t, because there isn’t one. These remakes are always inferior to their predecessors, they tarnish the legacy that the originals have left behind, and they need to stop.

It’s hard to believe that Hollywood is suffering from a true lack ideas. Thousands of screenwriters live in Los Angeles, and thousands more are studying to become scribes. What Hollywood is suffering from is a lack of balls. Studio execs are afraid to take risks, and the resulting product, while safe, is pathetic. Hollywood is a snake eating its own tail. If it doesn’t grow up and stop leeching off its past success, eventually it will eat its entire body, and then its head, and then it’ll just start all over again.

As movie lovers, we’re starved for the next Godfather or the next Scarface – and we don’t mean the f**king remakes.