Remakes are nothing new in Hollywood but when it comes to your favorite movies, you often hope there will be ‘nothing new’, at all.
In Scarface: first and second impact, I explained how some movies inspired my creativity and made me write my first short stories; Scarface is definitely one of these great movies that changed my life. In Lost, Battlestar Galactica, Nip/Tuck, House M.D… Addicted!, it was about The Twilight Zone (and The Prisoner) and the way the TV show fulled my imagination when I was a very young teenager.
Blade Runner was one of the most important film of my childhood. I could feel the oppressive and stifling atmosphere, it was dark and always raining. The synthesiser-made music and most of all, the dystopian/cyberpunk world really impressed me (and maybe is the reason for my interest in #Steampunk). It’s only years later that I realized Blade Runner was heavily influenced by Metropolis (I mention Fritz Lang and his movie in this post -in French).
So are these remakes a good news? The Scarface movie everyone knows was a remake of the 1932 Howard Hawks gangster film starring Paul Muni. Then the remake directed by Brian De Palma, written by Oliver Stone, produced by Martin Bregman and starring Al Pacino has become a cult classic gangster movie. So remakes can be good, obviously. But this new Scarface developed by Universal Picture won’t be a remake of the original film, nor will it be a prequel or sequel, but ‘a crime tale set in today’s world, offering a dark look at the American Dream’. And no Al Pacino either although the movie will be produced by Martin Bregman. I’m not sure it will be ‘enough’.
Now The Twilight Zone. The upcoming movie adaptation of the American television anthology series is being developed by Warner Bros and Leonardo DiCaprio‘s Appian Way. I can barely imagine how this movie will live up to the original classic TV series created by Rod Serling… ‘There is a fifth dimension beyond that which is known to man. It is a dimension as vast as space and as timeless as infinity. It is the middle ground between light and shadow, between science and superstition, and it lies between the pit of man’s fears and the summit of his knowledge. This is the dimension of imagination. It is an area which we call the Twilight Zone.’ Needless to say my expectations are high!
Blade Runner, the remake. With Ridley Scott but without Harrison Ford. Rick Deckard will not be in the film, nor will be Roy Batty (Rutger Hauer), Zhora (Joanna Cassidy) and Pris (Daryl Hannah). As of today, we still don’t know if it will be a prequel or a sequel to the 1982 original movie. Ridley Scott is a great director so I’m inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt…
I will watch these movies as soon as they will be out and I will share with you my first thoughts and impressions!