Film Done Right

When Hollywood gets a good idea or a method that works, they normally work it to death because they know it gets them box office hits. They get these results, normally, from test audiences and focus groups. Unfortunately, sometimes this turns out to be a terrible work method, and despite the piles of money at the box office, these movies can be terrible. I have seen articles and trailers for some of the upcoming films that are just plain awful and kinda dumb. Stuff like a gritty origin story for “Robin Hood” (really? We need another origin story? And it has to be gritty?) and some terrible animated kids’ movies. Get this: “Sherlock Gnomes”. The sequel to “Gnomeo and Juliet”. Excuse me while I barf. And “The Lego Ninjago Movie”? I liked “The Lego Movie” and “The Lego Batman Movie” but this is really taking it too far. Despite jokes made in the trailer, Warner Bros. is really milking it. This was already a kids’ show, why do they need to give it the same movie treatment as its predecessors? And don’t get me started on the upcoming “Emoji Movie” or “Tetris” (actually, just stick with the emoji one because that one’s way worse). Is Hollywood really out of ideas? I get that there’s nothing new under the sun, but there has to be better ideas out there than this lineup that makes me lose faith in the film industry. So, if you’re in the biz, have connections, or just really want something to read and rant about to your friends, I have some ideas off the top of my head that are ten times better. Why? Read on.

The “Hoodwinked” Treatment

First off, a personal favorite. “Hoodwinked”, if you didn’t know, was a twist on the classic story of “Little Red Riding Hood”, taking the moral about “not talking to strangers” to the next level by including “don’t judge a book by its cover”. They also did a fun spin with a whodunnit twist. And Patrick Warburton voiced the Wolf. You can’t go wrong with that. Hollywood (specifically Dreamworks and the like) should continue to do this. Take classic stories that we know from our childhood and add the same kind of twist and comedy. They did something similar with “Happily N’Ever After”, a twist on “Cinderella” where what if the villains won. That was also a fun movie (and with Patrick Warburton. Huh, coincidence?) with fun comedy. These were great movies, and we can also pretend that their horrible straight-to-DVD, low budget sequels never happened. Disney does not have to be the only studio with access to old stories to give the princess treatment to. There is a whole treasure trove of stories out there that animation companies can bring to life in more ways than one. Which brings me to my next point…

Adaptations

This is not something new. We all know that Hollywood continuously makes adaptations out of our favorite books, games and TV shows. However, there is a lot of material that should be added to that list. More recently, they’ve primarily been paying attention to Young Adult novels, like “Divergent” and “Me, Earl and the Dying Girl”. Granted, I read the latter’s book and saw the movie, and I loved them both, but there are tons of better books and stories that could have been adapted instead. Remember when they made “Bridge to Terabithia”? I loved that book when I read it in elementary school, and the movie was awesome. I’d love to see more of something like that. There’s incredible series like “The Dresden Files”, “The Mysterious Benedict Society”, and “Eragon”. I know we already did “Eragon”, but that movie was a complete flop and the series deserves so much better. Also with the video game curse on the brink of breaking, there are plenty of great games with amazing stories that are worthy of the big screen. And we don’t have to stop there. Let’s not forget that many of our great classics were originally foreign films that we adapted. “The Magnificent 7” and “The Ring” were both originally Japanese films that we remade into Western and Horror films, respectively. “The Italian Job”, “Scent of a Woman” and “The Birdcage” were also European films until they got the American treatment. So why can’t we do that too? Let’s get some great foreign classics and reintroduce them to audiences.

Remakes and Reboots

While this is a sore and overdone subject, hear me out. While there are many films that we all agree should never be touched, there are so many great movies that have been forgotten or are unknown today. We have received some excellent remakes that surpassed their originals like “True Grit” and “Oceans Eleven”, so let’s get some more of those. Hollywood can revive the Western and Noir genres and reintroduce the great black-and-white films (as long as they’re tasteful and not like the color remake of “Psycho”. Ugh). This is also a reason to remake/reboot movies and franchises that didn’t work out the first time. We know what went wrong, so now they can fix it right. Bring back “The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen”, “Blade”, “Spawn”, “Zorro” and “The Last Airbender”. Let’s see these films done right. There are millions of stories out there, let’s just do them justice and give them the films they deserve.