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Wednesday 16 May 2012

The Taking of Pelham One Two Three: Take Two

Tuesday, 10th February 2009

Did you know that Tony Scott is filming a remake of Pelham One Two Three? If you think that sounds as though it must be a bad idea wait until you learn that the Robert Shaw part will be played by, yes, John Travolta. Seriously. Obviously. As Ross Douthat says, this is an entirely pointless exercise doomed to failure. You might as well remake Get Carter or The Wicker Man...

Ross agrees with Peter Suderman who fears that matters Hollywood are likely to get worse, not better.

But I am worried, to an extent, about the way Hollywood is trending towards recycling its properties. Yes, Tinseltown has been peddling recycled goods for a while now, but increasingly, it seems as if most major projects are sequels, adaptations, or reboots. But I’m genuinely starting to wonder if we aren’t headed toward a Hollywood that looks a lot more like the world of comics than the world of novels.

My worry is that rather than storytellers, the big Hollywood studios will become property owners, each with its own stable of recognizable icons, some brought from other mediums, some original to cinema: Transformers, Freddy, Jason, Spider-Man, Batman, James Bond, Jason Bourne, Robocop, Aliens, and on and on and on. My sense is that just as the major comic book publishers have largely spent their time and money recycling the same familiar characters for the last five decades or so, the big movie studios are trending toward a similar model. In the last few years, we’ve seen Die Hard, Rambo, Rocky, and Indiana Jones revived. We’ve watched Bond and Batman get total overhauls. A Robocop reboot is in the works. Kids shows from the 1980s seem to be hot properties: Transformers and Ninja Turtles have already made comebacks, G.I. Joe is coming this summer, and He-Man is on its way. And, of course, there’s another Friday the 13th film hitting theaters this week.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I love comic books, comic-book movies, and serialized genre fiction of all sorts. But it does strike me as sort of a shame that Hollywood, perhaps the greatest outlet for popular storytelling the last 100 years, now seems far less concerned with telling stories and far more concerned with retelling them.

This seems dangerously probable. Then again, remakes have been part of Hollywood's currency for as long as the movies have existed. John Huston's Maltese Falcon was the third movie adapted from Hammett's novel. Still, the great Which Remakes Were Better Than the Original? is a perennially popular parlour game. From recent years I'd nominate the second Thomas Crowne Affair and Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven both of which, it seemed to me, had more zip about them than the orginals. But of recent remakes that's about it.

UPDATE: Just to clarify - I do know that both Get Carter and The Wicker Man were subjected to terrible, pointless remakes. That's rather the point: why bother with such enterprises when it is obvious that you're not going to improve upon the original in any way? What next, a remake of Local Hero? Also: I don't consider Daniel Craig's Casino Royale a remake since the first movie was a spoof. It's another adaptation of Fleming's novel, rather than a true remake.

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Big Alec

February 10th, 2009 3:53pm Report this comment

I would add Casino Royale to that list.

THX1138

February 10th, 2009 4:04pm Report this comment

Alex

The Wickerman was remade in 2006.

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0450345/.

C'mon Hollywood story tellers have always raided the back catalogue of books & theatre why not have look back over their own past. Totally disagree about Thomas Crowne Affair the whole point of the original is that the Faye Dunaway character pays a terrible price for her lack of trust, the sugar coated ending spoils the remake.

Great recent remakes The Departed, Scar Face & 3:10 to Yuma

Daragh Nugent

February 10th, 2009 4:13pm Report this comment

I thought the writers' strike had cut the power to this one last year. Wishful thinking, it seems.

ndm

February 10th, 2009 5:20pm Report this comment

I'll give the benefit of doubt to Alex Massie and assume he knew Get Carter and Wickerman had been remade. He then writes:

-- From recent years I'd nominate the second Thomas Crowne Affair and Soderbergh's Ocean's Eleven both of which, it seemed to me, had more zip about them than the orginals.

But how much of that is really due to the remakes being made for a different audience than the original. The pacing, for example, of many 60s movies was a lot slower than it is today - and consequently appears somewhat alien to a modern audience.

The Bellman

February 10th, 2009 5:31pm Report this comment

Why couldn't someone remake decent films like Theodore Rex or Weekend at Bernie's 2.

IKM Smith

February 10th, 2009 5:50pm Report this comment

If memory serves I believe there already has been a remake of the Matthau Shaw Pelham 123. It featured as the leading villian d'Ofrio,(spelling?) who appears (or did) in one of the Law & Order series' offshoots.

Craig Strachan

February 10th, 2009 6:19pm Report this comment

I would agree about The Thomas Crowne Affair - in which Pierce Brosnan's charcter is revealed to be from Glasgow, like many a talented thief.

ndm

February 10th, 2009 6:52pm Report this comment

Talk of films and Glasgow reminds me of what I remember as a pretty interesting Harvey Keitel movie filmed there - Death Watch (La Mort en direct). Bertrand Tavernier supposedly used Glasgow because he wanted a European city no one would recognize.

Fergus Pickering

February 11th, 2009 2:22pm Report this comment

The guy is Vincent d'Onofrio and he stars in
Law and Order: Criminal Intent. And very good he is too. The remake of Invasion of the Bodysnatchers with Donald Sutherland was much better than the original. I think there was a remake of the remake and that was no good. Ben Hur with sound and Charlton Heston was batterthan BenHur without sound and Ramon Navarro. The Omega Man with the great Heston was much better than the remake with that cute black man with the sticky-out ears. But Heston's film was itself a remake of an original with Vincent Price. This sort of thing has been going on for years.

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