On a cool summers evening in 1998, at the tender age of 12, my best friend at the time convinced me to watch I Know What You Did Last Summer at a sleepover. We were excited because Freddie Prince Jr. was in it. It was exciting, thrilling and scary, we screamed and covered our eyes through all the good bits, but watched it until the end. I own the VHS of the movie and when DVDs became a thing, I got the special edition. A few years later, I got it on Blu Ray, I love this movie because it meant something so many years ago.
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Now, the same movie is getting a reboot barely 18 years after the movie premiered. The good folks in Hollywood have decided that it is time we went back there. The 1997 horror flick grossed around US$125-million worldwide and gave birth to not one, but two sequels in subsequent years.
The rebooting of past successes has been in vogue since writers and studios ran out of original ideas for stories to tell us. Some give us modern day retelling of old classics, such as the new TV show Selfie which is loosely based on My Fair Lady, and others just remake films verbatim, such as Vince Vaughn’s Psycho.
Every now and then, a relatively old movie gets aired and Twitter overcome with nostalgia for days gone by, of great stories once told and adventures once thrilling. Hollywood sees this and thinks: a reboot we must make.
At any given time Hollywood is working on at least 50 reboot ideas, some make it out of the cutting-room floor, others don’t. But where do we draw the line in the reboot frenzy? It seems that Hollywood has ran out of vampire books to turn into movies and the advances in technology and social media craze has them asking: how can we make old things new again?
The technology actually doesn’t matter
Truth is, someone already did this and chances of you surpassing the success of a cult classic is pretty slim. No matter how talented a director or writer is, if you are remaking an already brilliant film, then what can you add to bring the fans of old to you? Timing is very important in the world of remakes and reboots. Twenty years is not enough to get people excited about the same film again. This is not a Disney Classic, getting a few extra scenes, a new song and digital remastering. Also, Disney can do stuff like that — it’s bloody Disney. Remaking a 20 or 10 year old movie is almost a slap in the face of the original creators and fans. Yes, you just had this movie but it sucked so we are giving you a new one.
Most remakes are motivated by technology, the advancements in CGI and the contemporary way of life, which has studios clamoring for ways to capture that social media audience. I am not sure box office numbers count that much anymore, it’s now all about, did your movie trend on Twitter? So if the movie was already successful, why not remake it and hope that audiences migrate to social media so that your movie can trend.
No matter how much technology can add to the movie it is often impossible to recreate the original interest and entertainment. Take, The Day the Earth Stood Still and Clash of the Titans, the new teams significantly ramped up the special effects but both films still did poorly and were weak imitations of the originals.
It is actually a generational thing
We can argue that reboots aren’t necessarily for the old fans of the show but more an opportunity to tap into new ones. That makes sense but truth is, if this new generation as it were didn’t “get into” the movie or TV series in syndication, why do you think that the same story in a modernised context would make any difference to them? The current generation already have their Scream/I Know What You Did Last Summer-like classics with shows like Pretty Little Liars and movies The Roommate.
Most movies that get a reboot are cult classics and studios want to update them to give them mass commercial appeal. This only works with a franchise that is hungry for more of their cherished characters and stories. Think Star Trek 1, not the sequel.
There have been instances where remakes have come out not only to shine but stand on their own. Chris Nolan gave us a brilliant Batman reboot with great special effects and modernised storylines that could span generations. We also saw this with the Ocean Eleven movies, which was made close to 40 years after the original in the height of the Steven Soderbergh/George Clooney partnership (on the heels of Out of Sight).
Also, some movies are meant to stay in a certain era and taking them out of their context to make a quick buck is just plain rude. This was the case with Watchmen, a movie bound to particular mindset in the Eighties. The remake kept all the trappings of the old concept, with the same thoughts in mind and the same audience in mind, forgetting that people no longer have the same mindsets.
Tidy things up rather than recreate them
A few months ago, rumours started floating around about the possibility of a Charmed reboot. Audiences said goodbye to the Haliwell witches just under ten years ago and the show is still in syndication and yet somehow, studios think the audience is ready to bring them back in a reboot. In response, the show’s star Alyssa Milano, tweeted that she would rather do a movie to tie things up.
I would definitely do a #charmed movie. Would you, @H_Combs @rosemcgowan and @DohertyShannen?
— Alyssa Milano (@Alyssa_Milano) October 30, 2013
Which brings up back to I Know What You Did Last Summer. Wouldn’t it be better to put together a series loosely based on the original movie rather than remake the whole thing all over again, and does this reboot include the sequels? Do we need a reboot, simply because Hollywood ran out of vampire books?
