The Princess Bride being remade? Are there certain movies which should not be remade?

[Scalenex]

There is a shortage of perfect movies, it'd be a shame to damage this one.

The videos kind of beat a dead horse. But the gist is that The Princess Bride is a rare timeless classic. It is INCONCEIVABLE that a remake of this movie can add anything of value to it.

Perhaps I'm being too harsh. One would argue that The Wizard of Oz is a timeless classic that should not be touched. I will say that the Sci-Fi Channel's mini-series Tin Man and The Muppet Wizard of Oz were both entertaining to watch. They won't replace the original but they didn't damage the Wizard of Oz's legacy. There was a fifty year gap before they started rebranding the Wizard of Oz.

The Dark Knight and the Christopher Nolan Batman trilogy in general is fantastic and it just so happens that the Batman franchises before and after it were subpar. That being said. I would be unhappy if Batman never made it to the big screen again.

What makes The Princess Bride different? It's framed with a grandfather passing an old story on to his grandson. It is sort of intended to be timeless.

There a bunch of cult classics from the eighties that I would be skeptical of a remake but I wouldn't be hostile to it, unless a director I disliked was heading up the project.

I would not mind to see a remake of Labrynth or The Neverending Story.

If I was a Hollywood producer and my goals was to create something of artistic value, the rule is to follow failure. I use Judge Dredd as an example, it was a bad movie. The remake was quite good and under appreciated. You remake and revamp bad things. If you remake good things the bar is set higher and you will probably fail. Case in point, Robocop, The Predator, Batman V. Superman.

But remaking bad things is not a guarantee. X-Men 3: The Last Stand was a subpar movie. Fox's recent X-Men movie basically used the same story and it was a flop.

Anyway, The Princess Bride. I don't see how a remake of it could possibly be a good thing. Other classic movies I think would be difficult to make well, but not impossible. Though I doubt a remake of Citizen Cane would ever work.

 

[ravagekitteh]

I don’t feel massively strongly about it, but I think I agree with you in that the question I would ask is why (other than to make MASSIVE PROFITS of course)? There is absolutely nothing a remake is going to add in this case; it can only be inferior. However, I don’t think I feel as strongly about it as probably some others. It’s existence doesn’t somehow stop you from watching the original - as you said, there’s no reason for it to damage its legacy. Also, nobody’s exactly putting a gun to your head to make you watch the new one anyway; if you don’t like it, don’t watch it. I completely understand and agree with anyone who isn’t interested, but I don’t really understand any reaction to it stronger than “meh, that’ll probably be a bit shite, I’ll give it a miss”.

 

[Aginor]

I mostly agree.
Remakes are often unnecessary, even if they are well made, which they often aren't.

The thing about The Princess Bride is:
A lot of people don't know the movie. Here in Germany for example it is largely unknown. I didn't know it until I was way into my twenties and heard that it is an old movie that is considered to be a good one by English speaking people. In fact I haven't even seen it, I only know a few scenes and looked up the story, which seems to be nice indeed.

So I'll play advocatus diaboli here and say that a remake probably isn't that bad of an idea.
We have to look at the target audience. For someone who watched the original as a kid the movie can only be bad. Which is a problem since those people make up the majority of critics and would-be critics.
So the movie will fail, even if it is good. It has failed before the first scene is shot. That's the way the audience works these days. I don't think that's a good thing but that's how people work.


The other thing is that a movie has to fit into the zeitgeist. I think that is a major factor for success or failure. Robocop fit into the 1980s zeitgeist. Remaking it in the 2010s was risky. Even with all the flashy CGI.

Citizen Kane would never work, I agree. I wonder if I agree for the same reasons though. I'll go out on a limb and say that in reality only movie connoisseurs even enjoy the original. Most of it is pretty boring by today's standards. Who has watched it more than once? Its re-watch value is pretty low unless you happen to have an interest in filming techniques and movie making. I have watched it twice (for that exact reason) but that's it. There are way worse movies that I have seen more often. Hell, I've seen the Mortal Kombat movie more often since it is orders of magnitude more entertaining.

But let's look at a few successful examples as well: "The Birdcage", "True Lies", "Casino Royale", "The Fly" and "Ocean's Eleven" are considered to be good remakes. As a western fan I'd also say that "True Grit" is a prime example of a good remake.
What makes them succeed where others failed?

 

[Scalenex]

The other thing is that a movie has to fit into the zeitgeist. I think that is a major factor for success or failure. Robocop fit into the 1980s zeitgeist. Remaking it in the 2010s was risky. Even with all the flashy CGI.

I think your point is valid. The (youtube) semi-professional critics I trust say the biggest problem with the new Robocop is that they removed the rated R rating but the zeitgeist thing does not contradict this. Some of the most enduring rated R action movies came from the eighties.

What makes them succeed where others failed?

There is no magic single ingredient that is required to make a reboot or remake successful. Maybe zeitgeist is the single most important thing

This is a TV show, not a movie, growing up in the late eighties, early nineties I watched Ducktales after school every day. The recent remake of Ducktales is great. In my opinion, it may be the greatest remake every made. They keep the spirit of the old show but adapt it to the 21st century zeitgeist. The show is layered with easter eggs and homages to past Disney works of the era, and it is clear that the show writers and director knew and loved the original and the comics.

The first Judge Dredd movie stunk because the creators largely ignored the source material, and made a generic Sylvester Stallone action movie. The second Judge Dredd movie was written and directed by a fan of the comics.

I guess it's important to respect the source material but nearly every writer and director who is not working on Star Trek Discovery at least pays lip service to respecting the source material.

I might give True Grit a try, never seen it. I find that I actually prefer 90s to now westerns over "classic" westerns. I like Tombstone.

 

[Warden]

I don't know much about poltergeists or zeitgeists or whatever, but I did like the movie. Really fun movie, very quotable; it's inconceivable that they would do a remake...

MASSIVE PROFITS

...but this is probably the reason why.

I would be pretty shocked if it wound up being better than the original.

 

[Scalenex]

(other than to make MASSIVE PROFITS of course)

...but this is probably the reason why.

I would be pretty shocked if it wound up being better than the original.

I would be shocked if a remake could make massive profits. Maybe a modest profit if it's handled well, but I don't think there is enough good will to enable massive profit.

This seems like a highly risky move. At this point I am hoping to see one of the cash grab remakes fall flat on it's face. There seems to be less patience for that with Disney remaking their animated classics in live action. I understand that the live action Lion King was lambasted because it's attempt to be realistic and to allow expressive animals has the movie entrenched deep in the uncanny valley.

 

[Aginor]

The Lion King (2019) did make tons of money though.
It grossed 1 _billion_ in 21 days, making it the most successful animated movie ever.

Probably an example for how "good" and "successful" can be two very different things.

 

[DeathBringer125]

Uggh I didn't know they were gonna remake the Princess Bride but hopefully it is good. Loved the original but its worrying whenever they make remakes of old movies because they risk ruining them. That being said it could turn out really good. Lets hope though that if they kill it it's only "mostly dead"

 

[ChapterAquila92]

Remakes are always a gamble, I find, as there are a number of variables at play: how the source material is treated, the general zeitgeist, the choice of actors to play the parts, the biases of the movie's creators, etc. Sometimes, the movie leans too much on the original to stand on its own merits (i.e. Aladdin), while others lose context or credibility when they follow the zeitgeist (i.e. Red Dawn). Some movies are victims of directors and/or actors trying to pander to a specific audience (i.e. Ghostbusters), while others capitalize on being more faithful to the original source material than the original movie did (i.e. Dredd). It's by no means clear-cut, but neither is determining which movies are worthwhile to remake or not.

One thing I have noticed however is that a lot of the movies being remade are cult classics; they never did well in the box office yet nevertheless gained a devoted fanbase that made it popular by proxy. Those don't sound like movies that would fare well if remade.

 

[Killer Angel]

No, please no.