Recycling old shows...Star Wars, BSG, now "V"?

[Bryan Daugherty]

George Lucas did it, Syfy channel is famous for it. Why are so many shows I grew up on back again?

This round started with Lucas:
Star Wars: Remastered and then the prequels
Indian Jones
and also,
Superman
X-men (...and most of the other superhero movies over the last 10 yrs...)
Transformers
G.I Joe
He-man
Care Bears
Battlestar Gallactica
King Kong
The Chronicles of Narnia
Frank Herbert's: Dune
many others and now ABC is bringing back "V"

There is a trend to redo, re-release, and revamp old shows. Of course this is not a new idea. Hollywood has done it many times over, how many times has the Kong series been redone? I used to think this is strictly good marketing. I was born in the 70's so I grew up with so many of these shows and I assumed that it was mainly an attempt to rebuild a proven brand and resell it to an audience that already is emotionally invested but I am starting to wonder if it is something more. It is an interview with Peter Jackson that makes me wonder if it is marketing or if it is the audience growing up and becoming filmmakers and not ready to part with the series and modern mythology that we grew up on? Are we going back to these old series because we always wished the survivors of the cylon war would make it to Earth? And cartoons just weren't good enough for such epic tales as LOTR or Narnia? I just can't help but wonder how much of this is driven by marketing strategy and how much of it is driven by people like Peter Jackson who just knew there had to be a better Kong and that the world deserved a 9 hr version of LOTR split over 3 movies... So far the gamble seems to have paid off (I personally own all seasons of BSG old and new on DVD) and it should be interesting to see how "V" comes to life...

[David Barnett]

I guess it's a little of both. For example Kevin Smith of Clerks wanted to make Superman. Even wrote a script for it which was ultimately rejected. I think mostly it's marketing & money, as past shows already come with a brand name (Dukes of Hazard, Bad News Bears etc)

Not sure if it's true but I thought I heard they were remaking The A-Team, with possibly Ice Cube as Mr T. Still trying to figure out why you included Care Bears on the list of shows you grew up on. :P


j/k

[Bryan Daugherty]

I have a 6 yr old daughter, and I was surprised to see Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake are popular again. I figure we will see She-ra returning any day now... With these cartoons I think it is more marketing than anything else. If I am buying a present for her, I would be more likely to buy from a brand whose message I am familiar with than one I am not...hence the re-branding of Tinkerbell. When I grew up she was a spoiled vindictive little fairy who tried to kill Wendy, now she is a hero/treasure hunter...

I must admit, being a parent of a little girl I know much more about Barbie and Care bears than I would ever have imagined...or like to admit...:)

[Justin Kuhn]

The way Kevin Smith tells the story, he was hired to write that script by a certain producer, and the producer wanted a bunch of stupid things included in the story, including a giant robot spider and other mistakes...which subsequently made it into Wild Wild West.

Also the A-Team movie is currently in production, starring Liam Neeson as Hannibal, Bradley Cooper as Face, Sharito Copely (District 9) as Murdock, Rampage as BA (I only had to imdb one of those names, y'all. Such a nerd). Rampage is this dude off of the UFC, he pulled a hit and run last year-ish, his ginormous truck had "RAMPAGE" plastered on it so that might have been how they figured out it was him. Now he's got a movie deal. Good times.

[Garrett Low]

Heck, my 6 yr old daughter and 8 yr old son like watching Scooby Do and Tom & Jerry. Who would have ever thought that those two shows would have any life nowadays with all the CGI shows out there.

Garrett

[Kelly Goden]

I think there was a secret meeting somewhere with studio executives and marketing people and they went through a list of movie or tv or toy properties to determine which ones had a certain buzz quality that they could remake or update or reimagine based upon demographics and market research.
That's why you have movies being remade like Fright Night, the Thing(went 20 years without any word of a sequel or remake), the Blob, the slasher films, the Karate Kid...etc etc.
Its not the classic case of remaking a movie and trying a new spin on it(I think Kong 76 sucked but at least they set it in modern times--a mistake I think, but at least it was different). I suspect the Jackson Kong remake had much to do with legalities. Kong's status is murky--he's sort of public domain, but Universal has him in theme rides etc. They wanted to reassert copyright-(probably the reason he has a scar)-though the movie is based on the book and doesnt include some things from the 33 movie like the train because the rights are owned by others. I strongly disliked Jackson's Kong, I think the only novelty reason to remake it was to see a cg King Kong on the empire state building--it was so padded and full of useless fluff. The original Kong is like Citizen Kane--its a product of the time and particular individuals and there is no point remaking it. It cant be re-interpreted like Frankenstein or Dracula or Trazan or Sherlock Holmes. Jackson probably just felt if anyone was going to remake it-he might as well since he was such a fan of it. Kong was turned into a wimp. In the original he was a mass murderer with no friends and you feel sorry for him. In the remakes they give him friends and supporters--to the point of implausibility.They took the Beauty and the Beast thing way too literally.

Everything today is about franchises--most of the top grossing movies in the past decade have been based on them. if you go back, you see that there has been a steadily decline in the number of original screenplay movies being made that crack the top ten. Sequels have always been around, but not so many remakes(with some exceptions-in the 30s there were a lot more remakes on top of each other..2-3 versions of the Maltese Falcon within ten years etc).

Liam Neeson as Hannibal? Seriously? There was a time when no big actor would touch a comic book or tv show adaptation. But not today with the way the studios operate.

"I love it when a plan comes together."
I hope the A -Team has better aim than they did on the show!

[Brian Drysdale]

Originally Posted by Garrett Low

Heck, my 6 yr old daughter and 8 yr old son like watching Scooby Do and Tom & Jerry. Who would have ever thought that those two shows would have any life nowadays with all the CGI shows out there.

Garrett

It's not about the technology it's about telling a story. The Tom & Jerry cartoons are high quality productions which still stand up... not to sure about Scoopy Do but they've always a following... just keep an eye out for those ghosts who are really crooks.