That's how the big budget flicks have been for a long time. It's not hard to find good original movies these days. Garden State, Maria Full of Grace, Napoleon Dynamite, Open Water, Before Sunset, Collateral, The Village, The Terminal, just to name a few. Even the big blockbusters aren't that bad. The Bourne Supremacy, Spiderman2, and I Robot were good. The big comedies of the summer-Anchorman, Harold and Kumar, Dodgeball-have been well-received as well.
There will certainly be some protests. Heck, Alanis M. got stuff thrown at her for her brief appearance in "Dogma." For the most part though, I don't see it being a problem. After all, who can complain about the almighty reminding the humans, "It can work," a message probably more relevant now than it was thirty years ago.
I also preferred Book II. And the one with Brooke Shields was great. It was called "Just You and Me, Kid." Saw it several times as a kid.
I liked all the Oh God movies. And I think Ellen DeGeneres is well cast in the role. But i won't pay $10 to see it. Maybe when it comes on tv.
It's really not a matter of being out of ideas. It's a matter of wanting to make movies that have a built-in awareness to more easily drive opening-weekend box office. The theory being that if people recognize the property before-hand, it's that much easier to sell the new one. When starting from scratch, you have to work that much harder to educate the public on what they're going to get with your movie. Of course, I would bet these kinds of remakes fail more often than they succeed, so the theory doesn't really result in sales. But studio executives are not known for making good decisions (think of all the money wasted on audience testing that studios know doesn't work. Yet they're slaves to it and have ruined many movies through audience testing or passed on huge hits because they "know" audiences don't like a particular genre or a particular kind of movie). There are hundreds of old movies that are potentially ripe for a remake that your average moviegoer as never heard of, but the studios don't touch them because they don't have the built-in awareness.
I'd rather a studio be upfront about making a remake than insulting our intelligence with obviously stollen plots like they do roughly 500 times a year.
[queue movie announcer voice] ...In a world where passionate businessmen and increasingly indifferent artists struggle for creative control, in a world where profitability slowly but solidly trumps creativity, in a world where a mediocre opening weekend is always better than an artistic risk, in a world where genuine talent is driven to extinction by bland yuppie greed, there is one, and only one, movie format that can make it out alive....... THE REMAKE
this is kinda ironic since her most famous stand up bit was a telephone call to god. i love ellen but i don't know if i'll see it at the theater. depends on who else is cast i guess.
She got the part BECAUSE of the anticipated protest Protest = publicity Publicity = $$$$ The Religious Right will Protest the gay community will hopefully have a knee jerk reaction of going out and supporitng this movie and the rest of the people will see it . . 'just to see what the fuss is about' They banking on it Omen River
i'd like to go on record to say that ellen is among my favorite celebrites, period. she's freaking hilarious. her show was good. her new show is good, though i don't get to watch it much because of this whole job thing...her stand-up is good...and she was incredible doing the voice-over in Finding Nemo. very funny. i think she will be funny in this role. this is not a Biblically based movie...its not as if they're trying to do some adaptation of a story from the Bible. i'm not really concerned with how God is personified in a comedy. if alanis morissette can do it, so can ellen. and probably be more entertaining.
There is no such thing as a completely original idea. Anyway, good for Ellen. Sounds like fun, I'll definitely wait to see it before I decide whether or not to give a thumbs down.
Yeah, but you're like . . . sensible and stuff - and not totally insane like many from the fringe are. Also, RM95 - While I don't disagree with your point, I would point out that The Village was a rip-off of a children's book. M. Night is getting sued over it.
http://www.cnn.com/2004/SHOWBIZ/Movies/08/10/leisure.thevillage.reut/ I spoke too soon, not getting sued yet. Might be getting sued.
