Possible Dune remake

[Princess Ivy]

Originally Posted by iansales

I picked Pride & Prejudice as an example of a book whic has had several adaptations, both film and television, and most of which are good. But Austen is by no means the only author who has had several versions of one of her novels adapted for film.

To be fair, Hollywood does seem overly fond of recycling, but the remakes are outnumbered by original films - at my local cinema, the following films are showing:

1408 - original adaptation of short story
2 Days in Paris - original French film
BRATZ - original film based on range of toys
Breach - original film, based on a true story
Death Sentence -original adaptation of book
Evan Almighty - original film
Hairspray - remake
Hallam Foe - original adaptation of book
Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix - original adaptation of book
Knocked Up - original film
No Reservations - original film
Run, Fatboy, Run - original film
Rush Hour 3 - sequel (to original film)
Shrek the Third - sequel (to original film)
Surf's Up - original film
The Bourne Ultimatum - sequel (to original adaptation of book)
The Simpsons Movie - original adaptation of TV series
Transformers - remake
Year of the Dog - original film

Only two remakes in the entire lot...

ah, but originality? 13 of those films are sequels (four sequels, which are often just far weaker remakes), remakes, based on tv shows or based on books (note, evan almighty is the sequal to bruce almighty).
should also note, not one of those films is on my 'to watch' list.

[roddglenn]

The Bedroom Window starring Steve Guttenberg was the third adaption of Rear Window.

[iansales]

No wonder that one slipped under my radar - Steve Guttenberg! Has he ever made a decent film? :-)

Yes, I missed that Evan Almighty was a sequel. But I don't see anything wrong with film adaptations of books - it's an entirely different format. In some cases, the films are actually better than the original books.

Oh, and while The Bourne Ultimatum is a sequel to the earlier two films, it's also an adaptation of a book. And, if a fresh adaptation of a novel isn't really a remake then the first Matt Damon Bourne film isn't a remake, even if there was an earlier adaptation...

[roddglenn]

With the exception of Boys From Brazil (a fairly small part) I think you might be right about Guttenberg!

[iansales]

According to imdb the Filipino English title of The Boys from Brazil was... Boys from the Brussel. Did they know something we don't? :-)

[roddglenn]

lol I didn't know that. Intriguing!

[iansales]

I suspect it's a Filipino misspelling of "Brazil". Mistakes like that are common in that part of the world...

[steve12553]

Originally Posted by iansales

Nancy Drew... It's her first outing in cinemas. There may have been a TV series, but that doesn't really make the new film a remake.

There were four Nancy Drew movies made in the 1930's starring Bonita Granville which were highly rated. I haven't seen them so I can't agree or disagree. I intended to jump into this fray yesterday when it was still about Dune but I got distracted. I enjoyed the David Lynch version when it came out but I had read the original trilogy at least twice by them. (Which was a requirement for having a clue what the movie was about.) The story is just too broad for a 2 and a half hour movie. The mini-series on SciFi was a better
medium for the story but of course it was still not perfect and didn't satify enough people. To me it proved the old Harkonnion adage: "Dune is like pizza, when it's good, it's very good and when it's bad, it's still pretty good."

[Sledgeka]

I tend to agree that it would be better to adapt the other Dune Novels than make another remake? I thought the SCi-Fi Channel Version made more sense and was really good.

[Parson]

Maybe I can get this back on track. Why not make a movie of "Gateway." That would seem to be a doable thing, and in my opinion Gateway is in many ways superior to Dune. Certainly the sequels are!

[unclejack]

Hey, I didn't know there were that many remakes of Rear Window. I actually posted a thread on this site talkin about what a huge piece of monkey turd the movie Disturbia is because it so blatantly rips off Rear Window, but I'm not aware of the Christopher Reeves version and the Guttenburg Version. Wouldn't that make Disturbia the third remake?
Also, I've notice that even when Hollywood isn't remaking movies, the are constantly regurgitating the same concepts in movies in different wrappers. Perfect example...the movie Next starring Nicholas Cage. Isn't that going to be like the one-millionth movie that deals with the subject of clairevoyance in some way? Let's see, Firestarter touched on that, of course there is The Dead Zone, The Gift, Minority Report, Jeepers Creepers, the Final Destination Trilogy, Fear (not the new one starring Mark Walhberg), the Sixth Sense, Unbreakable and many others. Not to mention the large amount of tv shows out there on psychic abilities and clairevoyance. The 4400 (which I love and is actually very original and not all about clairevoyance), the Dead Zone, Medium..that's just a few, I'm sure there are more out there that I'm missin.
I'm not sayin Next won't be good, but I just don't know how many other ways there are out there to spin the same concept and keep it interesting. I for one would love to see Hollywood come up with something that hasn't been done before.
Even the new movie Invisible is a concept that has already been done, most recently in Just Like Heaven. The first occurance of that concept that I know of was that movie starring Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin that I can't remember the name of. (It was a comedic spin on the whole thing but even still the same)

[iansales]

Next is another butchering of a Philip K Dick story - a novelette titled 'The Golden Man' from 1954.

[Foxbat]

Originally Posted by Parson

Maybe I can get this back on track. Why not make a movie of "Gateway." That would seem to be a doable thing, and in my opinion Gateway is in many ways superior to Dune. Certainly the sequels are!

I think this would be a good choice but - unfortunately - Gateway just doesn't seem to drum up the same kind of support from the money men that Dune does. Personally, I'd like to see something like Julian May's Saga of the Exiles brought to the silver screen. Just think of all that luscious prehistoric Europe (including the gypsum plains that were to become the Mediterranean) that the FX guys could create with their CGI

[unclejack]

Well I didn't know Next was another remake too, it seems Hollywood has run out of ideas completely. I really don't mind movies based on books, sometimes I like to see the story put on the big screen. But I am tired of all the remakes. I honestly can't remember the last time I saw a movie that was truly stellar. The last one I saw that I was truly impressed with was either A Beautiful Mind or Cast Away. I keep wondering when the next truly excellent movie is gonna come out but it just doesn't look like it's gonna happen. For the time being I will enjoy the pleasures of foreign cinema until Hollywood gets their act together.

[unclejack]

No, wait, Batman Begins, that was the last truly good movie I saw. That and Superman Returns despite all the people who hated it, I loved it. That is one good thing I can say for Hollywood, for anyone like myself who is a fan of the comic book world, they seem to be focusing alot of attention on that genre and for the most part their doin a pretty good job I think. I know it doesn't really qualify as original because the movies are based on the comics but I think true comic book fans are glad to see the transformation from comic books to the big screen. (Oh yeah, I also loved the latest Fantastic Four movie)