There’s a new cast in the Broadway revival of FUNNY GIRL.
There may be a revival of Reba McEntire’s REBA.
An ALLY MCBEAL sequel is in the works.
Warner Brothers is looking to another OCEAN’S ELEVEN reboot.
There’s a FERRIS BEULLER’S DAY OFF spinoff being developed.
Casting updates are announced on the SEX AND THE CITY sequel.
Can the entertainment industry do anything original anymore? There is so much product out there that networks and studios and Broadway feel they need a recognizable brand going in. But it comes at the expense of original material.
Still, if I’m being honest, I can’t wait for the sequel of JUSTIFIED.
50 comments :
> Can the entertainment industry do anything original anymore?
I get tired of seeing this comment all over the place. There is a ton of original content being created as well. There are so many outlets for content now that we are able to get both original and updates on previously created material.
I'm happy to see both. I have enjoyed recent original stuff like Only Murders In The Building, Barry, Superstore (Just to name stuff I've been watching recently).
Also enjoying The Conners, The Wonder Years, Ghostbusters: Afterlife, and looking forward to the new Quantum Leap sequel.
Why can't we just enjoy what we have whether it's new or a new take on something old?
Not to mention a new "King Kong" series on Disney+. The new "Lord of the Rings" streaming series. A new "Planet of the Apes" film (AGAIN!). Is The CW planning any more new films related to last year's "Waltons" reboot? (It was LAME.) It's just the tip of the iceberg. There are at least ten others, that I can't remember at the moment.
I've heard talk of a "Harry Potter" streaming series.
It's endless.
You did a similar rant 50 years ago when previewing the fall 1972 - 1973 season.
20th Century Fox is doing a spinoff of the movie M*A*S*H* -
Why aren't they doing more original programming like Gary Marshall's "Me And The Chimp"?
I'm with you on Justified.
This is all just a sign that Hollywood is dying a slow painful death. All these pathetic and inferior reboots of classic shows and movies are just proof that they don't care about making quality work anymore, they just want to cheat off of someone else's paper. Not one of these reboots have actually worked, with exception to that Hawaii Five O one; there's an exception to every rule, but even that one will always be polarizing among fans of the original vs the new one. I just hope we will eventually see a resurgence of original, well made and potential classic material soon but I won't hold my breath.
Betcha can't wait for the new KING KONG series ! At the end of the day, it will never reach the sublime heights of the 60s cartoon version of KING KONG ("ten times as big ad a man").
I forget who said they shouldn't remake great movies, we should remake bad ones. That's probably true but I don't think the same applies to TV series, at least procedurals. I'd love to see a revived Justified, sure. But I'd rather see a new West Wing. Or St. Elsewhere. Or e.r.
New cast, updated plots.
It's worked for CSI and Law And Order Original Flavor.
So no news of the Frasier reboot?
At this point, news sites reporting on these things like it's big news is pretty silly. Of course they're coming back. If it's IP these companies own, then it's "content" and it's going to be remade.
It's like reporting that McDonald's is going to make more hamburgers tomorrow.
The Ferris Bueller spinoff doesn't have Ferris Bueller! Somebody thought the two car hops who went on a joy ride were interesting characters!
Interesting list. I feel like my reaction depends heavily on the day and which variable affects me at any given time...
Sometimes, I feel like there is no such thing as a "new story". Pick guru x or y who says there are only Z number of stories out there, all of them on a theme. So if you're going to do a show where "place" is a primary character like Cheers or The Office or 4077th, then there could be a lot of similarity between show 1 and show 2. Hence the stupid pitches -- "It's Cheers -- on a boat!" "It's Cheers -- in a coffee shop!". "It's Cheers -- in space!". So lots of shows that "pay homage" / "steal" heavily even without a reboot. Oh, look, cop partners who don't get along, that's original.
Sometimes, I'm more like, "Well, if you're GOING to do cop partners that don't get along, AND you want to start with a bit of backstory already to get you over the initial awareness hump with new audiences, well why not reboot Lethal Weapon?". I like it better when it is completely new characters, similar in name, but not actual storyline.
Other times, I would show up for After MASH. Or the reboot of Will and Grace. It might sing, it might suck. But I'll watch Frasier...I gave Murphy Brown 2 a try, didn't hold. Depends I think on whether I want to hear more about those characters, first and foremost, and secondly, whether I think the previous "ending" was timely. I loved Cheers, BBT, MASH, Frasier. I would watch more BBT, but the ending was fine. I liked How I Met Your Mother for a few seasons, have seen them all, but HIMYFather SUCKED. Oh, my god, it ripped off everything and got most of it wrong. It did not work at all.
Other times, I just want them to fix something. Like give a good ending to a show that ended too soon. I see it more on dramas, than comedies I think. Parlty because I want the continuing storyline more.
I found it interesting reading Burrows' book (wait, was it Burrows or Brooks? The Jimmy guy). There are examples of scenes that he references and I've seen them, some of them didn't work at all. Everything that glitters is not gold in that book.
And then other times? I feel as you do. Just do something NEW! Unless of course someone wants to try another "we know the future and we'll change it" show like SEVEN DAYS / EARLY EDITION or the "ONE MAN CAN MAKE A DIFFERENCE" high end adventure show again. Nobody has nailed it since the 80s, but they keep trying. And I'll keep watching EVERY time. :)
I'm looking forward to the new "Gentle Kong" series. Each week Kong will break into a different hotel room and abscond with a female guest star.
How many Sherlock Holmes reboots have there been since the last story was published by Conan Doyle in 1927? Stage plays, musicals, cartoons, parodies, even porn. I'm sure there's a video game (not my area). Not to mention individual episodes of shows like STAR TREK: TNG. There will be more, because each generation finds the characters compelling and wants to believe all crimes can be solved and justice prevail.
It appears many of these remakes are done strictly for demographic reasons, largely to draw a large percentage of black audiences who may (or may have not) have watched the original "white" version of the series or film (think the 2005 "Honeymooners" movie, or the current "The Equalizer" and "The Wonder Years").
Sanford and Son, Three's Company, All in the Family.. All watered down remakes of British Shows.. yep.. too many remakes and unoniginal stuff.. yet despite being very tame compared to what they orignally were, they still seam to be seen as groundbreaking.. I guess when you live in a place with alot of ground...
that said, one episode of Steptoe and Son (the original version of Sanford and Son) was just a remake of an episode of the honeymooners i believe.. never quite understood that as Ray Galton and Alan Simpson are one of the biggest names in Comedy writing from the 50s till.. early 90s
I think there's an old saying that there are only seven plots in the literary universe. So there may not be much room left? I mean, I've had two sitcom ideas in my life, and no one has produced either one, but others have come close. I thought I was being creative. I realized ... I'm not.
Beautifully said, @pollywogg!
Speaking of chimps, I'm waiting for the reboot of "BJ and the bear" and a reboot of its spinoff "Sheriff Lobo"
I don't think the point here is to argue against the very concept of a remake. Some can be excellent when the people behind them are passionate about putting a fresh twist on an old idea. No, it's the sheer number of remakes and riffs on existing IP now that's the point of the criticism. Because today's Hollywood has the condescending, overbearing mentality of a carnival barker shouting, "You there, fanboy! I know what you like!"
John Houston
" I can’t wait for the sequel of JUSTIFIED. "
Fuckin' A bubba
there is more original programs being produced now than ever, on account of the many channels and services that produce them. Singling out the rehashes is short sighted, and so is focusing on network.
I'm not opposed to a well-made retread. I never watched the original Will and Grace, it didn't appeal to me, but we watched the reboot a few years ago and loved it. You never know.
I like 30 Rock's idea: Black Frasier. I'd watch that.
If there are people starving for more Reba and Ally McBeal, why not give it to them? (And they may have it all to themselves.) After all, it's not as though the networks have sparkling, witty comedies that will be put aside as a result.
I love CBS's colorized episodes of classic sitcoms at holiday time. More of that, please.
The live performances of classic Norman Lear sitcom episodes weren't for me, but I hear they might redo the Maude episode where she gets an abortion. That, I'd love to see. (Judy Gold would make a fabulous Maude.)
Broadway is one place where revivals are generally eagerly welcomed. Lucky me, a few years ago I got to see Follies and Promises, Promises. Long-running shows replace cast members all the time, and based on reviews, not a minute too soon for Funny Girl.
It all depends on the quality. The first film version of "The Maltese Falcon," made in 1931 and starring Ricardo Cortez as Sam Spade, is no classic but a better film than many give it credit for, with a pure pre-Code mentality. The Dashiell Hammett novel was remade in 1936 as the comedy "Satan Met A Lady," but despite the able presence of Warren William and Bette Davis, it isn't very good, and substantially weaker than the '31 version. "Falcon" was remade again in 1941 under rookie director John Huston, and while the Code (instituted in 1934) could have hampered him, his film noir spin on the story -- a genre that many say began earlier that year with Humphrey Bogart in "High Sierra" -- made it work, thanks to Bogart and a superlative ensemble.
Looking forward to the "I'm Dickens, He's Fenster" reboot.
Call Me Mike mentioned IP. Milking Intellectual Property is more than a matter of unoriginality; it's how the big players in the industry try to minimize their dependence on creators.
In silent days, the earliest studios tried to keep actors' names secret. They used noms de cinema like "The Biograph Girl" to keep stars from gaining bargaining power. Later, bosses in the movie and music business stubbornly insisted that stars could be made or unmade at will (they were half right, since they could end careers easily enough). Now and again they'd go stumbling blindly after a trend or a specific person, but they kept falling back to default dismissal of performers' value and of audiences' opinions.
Today the studio executive's wet dream is a Franchise, a font of sure-fire products created by interchangeable hired hands before and behind the camera. Thus the ransacking of shelves for any own-able property with a trace of name recognition. That a good number of supposedly sure-fire projects go down in flames, and that the hired hands often make all the difference, is conveniently forgotten. The executive is the true creative genius for having bought or inherited the IP.
I can only think of two reasons either/both that:
(a) The bean counters won't risk money on an unknown 'brand';
(b) The studio executive(s) who make the decision have no faith in their own judgement.
Given that Elmore Leonard is dead, which was one reason the series ended, I would dread a sequel to JUSTIFIED.
wg
@DBenson
Yep, you hit the nail on the head.
I was listening to a podcast a few years ago, and one of the hosts told a story about how he was in talks with one of the major studios to develop something. But instead of them asking him what ideas he had, they sent him a Wikipedia list of all the things they've made in the past hundred years and said, "What looks good to you?" As in, what would you like to remake?
I don't know if this is the standard across the industry, but it was nonetheless a depressing story.
Watch the trailer for Rob Zombie's The Munsters movie. And as you watch it, bear in mind it apparently cost $40 million and you too will wonder what the fuck the 40 million went on, because it's one of the shittiest, cheapest looking piles of crap you've ever seen. I swear it looks like it was shot on an 80s camcorder in a small town theme park.
The sequel is based upon an Elmore Leonard novel.
@DBenson - Your comment made me wonder: Has there ever been a studio movie about the long running Studio System? Were there -any- performers who tried to break their lock their studio had on their contract a la Curt Flood in baseball?
https://howtheyplay.com/team-sports/Curt-Flood-The-Player-Who-Changed-MLB-and-Free-Agency#:~:text=In%201976%2C%20pitchers%20Andy%20Messersmith,and%20fans%20welcomed%20free%20agency.
There -must- have been one or two. That's a story that may be too close to Hollywood, Inc. to tell fairly.
@Douglas Trapasso
The Errand Boy.
I am hoping that the new television show Reboot runs for at least a few seasons, so that about 10 years from now they can do a reboot of Reboot. https://variety.com/2022/tv/news/reboot-trailer-keegan-michael-key-johnny-knoxville-hulu-1235333502/
The tell for me is that the studios like to use the term "Intellectual Property," making it clear that they don't regard the original versions as finite stories, let alone art, but purely economic assets that can be broken apart and reassembled for new profits.
Remakes from the Golden Age of Hollywood have to be considered from the standpoint that the studios saw no profit in their back catalogues after the initial run of a film. Sometimes they'd do a simple retread from a few years back (silent films were ripe in that sense because no one would run them any more) or might shuffle the deck slightly. The 1937 Warner Brothers film KID GALAHAD was a circus story revamped into a boxing drama. The studio then remade the film in 1941 as THE WAGONS ROLL AT NIGHT, turning it back into a circus story. SATAN MET A LADY reworked THE MALTESE FALCON into oblivion, possibly to avoid being seen as a repeat (Dashiell Hammett is mentioned in the credits, but not the source novel).
The 1941 FALCON is a rare example of a remake being made out of respect for the original author. Huston felt neither of the previous versions actually represented the book. The first one had Spade solve the case through a contrived gimmick rather than Hammett's remorseless logic, while SATAN was such a travesty that it drove Bette Davis into direct conflict with the studio system. (James Cagney and Olivia de Havilland were two other stars who bucked WB over their contract practices).
It wasn't until television came along that movies' back catalogue became a primary source of income, and even then the tube-hating studios didn't seize the opportunity. When MCA bought the TV rights to the pre-1950 Paramount library in 1958, the films earned back their cost well before the final payment to the studio was due. When DVD was introduced, at one point it represented as much as 25% of studio profits, thanks in large part to the vast number of films appearing on disc from all eras of their history. Now the whole shebang will be dumped en masse onto streaming services and we may finally see how much of a foundation it provided for the companies that were formerly able to market the titles individually. Remakes are unlikely to have the staying power of the classics, no matter what short-term cash they may net.
My hunch is there'd already be some sort of reboot of M*A*S*H by now, if Fox didn't have to worry about Alan Alda, Mike Farrell and Loretta Swit objecting.
@ One Remake Too
Ten years ago, there was a failed NBC pilot, "Mockingbird Lane" - a "Munsters" update. It aired as a Halloween "special" on Oct 26, 2012. I remember it being fairly weird.
From Internet:
At TCA, NBC chief Bob Greenblatt reveals exactly why the reboot didn't go to series. "We just decided that it didn't hold together well enough to yield a series," he said. "It looked beautiful and original and creative, but it just all ultimately didn't come together…, it just didn't ultimately creatively all work."
@Brian, I'm with you but I do the BJ and the Bear references around here.
2022 BJ is an Uber driver:
Passenger: Hey man there's a monkey in your truck.
BJ: He's a chimpanzee, show some respect.
Bear jumps up in the cab, pulls the horn twice and screams at his camera close up...
The studio exec who approved Rob Zombie's "Munsters" remake probably thought, "Hey, those 'Addams Family' remakes have done quite well at the box office, so why not...?"
Had the 2005 "Bewitched" not been such a bomb, some exec would've used that line of thinking for a big-screen "I Dream of Jeannie" remake. (Incidentally, the still-lovely Barbara Eden, a wonderfully talented comedic actress, turned 91 this week.) Thankfully it never came off; otherwise, Jeannie magic might have made certain said exec then had a shoebox as his or her new home.
I am going to have to blame the BANKING industry for this.
As you know all too well, Ken, the entertainment industry in and of itself has no power to do anything unless somebody with deep pockets is willing to pay for it--and right now* those investors would much rather gamble their money on a property they know, ideally one that has already made lots of money for somebody else before.
Not one of them is willing to take a risk on the next would-be "Star Wars," ie. any as yet unheard of idea, that's out of step with current trends, without marquee names in the lead, made by essentially nobodies.
It may be naive of me, but I think if the BANKS were more interested in taking a chance on something new, the studios would all be making new somethings.
* Didn't they always, though? Their investments were contingent on things like celebrity leads who'd already made big bucks for the studios before.
Vincent,
Lisa Kudrow, twenty years ago, was involved in talks for a "I Dream of Jeannie" feature.
1949: The film The Third Man starring Orson Welles as Harry Lime
1951: The radio series The Adventures of Harry Lime starring Orson Welles as Harry Lime
1959: The TV series The Third Man starring Michel Rennie as Harry Lime
The film is wonderful, the radio series hugely entertaining, the TV show didn't have Orson Welles in it, but was entertaining enough.
There have also been two attempts at a Casablanca TV series, neither of which caught on.
ELP: when i saw you saying about a reboot of Reboot, i thought you meant the 90s CGI show 'ReBoot', which indeed kinda had 2 reBoots.. though neither were, they were just continuation, to a degree (the TV movies 'series 4', and a half live-action thing..).. It's only been.. what.. 4 years since the last show with 'ReBoot' in the title finished and they are already nicking it for something else?
Gilligan's Island
For the past twenty years, there have been numerous attempts to resuscitate that corpse. Movies, TV movies, etc. The most recent - a Netflix animated film. Not sure if that will see the light of day.
Over thirty years ago, I flew to NC, to see the Flatrock Playhouse premiere of the Schwartz-approved (written by his children, or something)"Gilligan's Island" musical. Ten minutes into it, the actor playing Gilligan, jumped off a table, and apparently broke his foot. No understudy, so the show didn't go on. Well, it has, over the past two decades. Numerous times.
Rest assured, we will see something "Gilligan." Interesting that Tina Louise is the last one left, considering her relationship to the series.
I've decided that this is not so terrible a trend. I saw a trivia quiz that asked who was friends with Jughead, Betty, and Veronica in the comic books. Of course, I know, but so would someone watching Riverdale. The reboots create a shared narrative among generations.
Speaking of which, I have merely watched the ads for Generation Gap, an alleged comic game show on ABC, where kids can't identify The Three Stooges, and grandmas never heard of TikTok. It looks awful.
Baxter Upton: In that case, I can feel free to look forward to it. Thanks.#
wg
I’m on the fence about the reboot trend. It can be fun to revisit old shows if done right, but at the same time they don’t usually go over as well. I think it has as much to with audiences being in a different place as anything else. I am not the person I was when those shows were on originally. And then there’s the realization that the goofiness you liked in a 20 something character is just sad when they are 40 something. But they keep doing it so someone must be watching?
I recently rewatched Maltese Falcon and aside from Bogart it was a little underwhelming. Scenes seemed a little raggedy, there are distracting plot holes, and the childish behavior of the crooks is overplayed. Dark Passage on the other hand is weird but so entertaining with great style and fantastic Lauren Bacall.
The Martin & Lewis movies were often loose remakes of earlier classic comedies: Living It Up/Nothing Sacred, You're Never Too Young/The Major and the Minor, Scared Stiff/Ghostbreakers, Bundle of Joy/Miracle of Morgan's Creek. They weren't as great as the originals of course but still usually well made and entertaining.
I ignore most new versions of classic films, it bothers me how they usually try to eclipse the older classics. But Mr. Deeds is one I watched out of curiosity and shocked it was so terrible and poorly written with no thematic point or coherence. A lot of so-called remakes of "dated" old movies are hollow at the core.
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