YARMs I wouldn’t pay for include: M, with Jeanine Garafolo; Eraserhead, with Rob Scnheider; Buckaroo Bansai, with John C Reilly; Lawrence of Arabia, with Cary Elwes; My Favorite Year, with Matt Damon; or the 1st make of Atlas Shrugged, with Charlize Theron — oh wait, they’re actually about to do that.
.

Most of them just can’t get anything new or innovative made, that’s all.

As earlier posters have pointed out, and as a recent post at Big Hollywood made clear, the ‘star’ system in Hollywood that caused most major film costs to skyrocket in the past 40 years just to handle the salaries of a handful of people have made film executives leery of signing off on risky projects.

If you have to pay your star $20,000,000 to be in your picture before a single frame is shot, they would prefer to go with something that has already been proven successful and demonstrated to have an audience.

This is why film adaptations of popular novels and comic books are at an all time high. These sort of crossover projects already have a ‘built-in’ audience.

Harry Potter, Twilight, Watchmen, Iron Man, Transformers, etc.

They already have a fan base so the only real trick is to use marketing to try to get those fans into the theaters to see your movie.

Of course, this sort of thing ‘locks in’ the creativity of the people working on the picture. If you’re trying to get a fan base into the theaters to spend money to see your film based on one of their favorite novels or comic books or kid’s TV show from the 70′s, or even a remake of an earlier film like The Karate Kid, there are very real boundaries already set in place that you can’t cross.

The basic story is pretty much cast in stone. You can’t really get cute with it or the fans will be turned off. So any creativity on projects like this is limited to coming up with new ways to present ideas other people came up with.

One fount of ‘new material’ Hollywood discovered the past decade was foreign films remade with American stars. Dark Water, The Grudge, and many other recent American films are remakes of Japanese and European films.

This is nothing new of course, those who study film are well aware that ‘The Magnificent Seven’ is based on Kurosawa’s ‘The Seven Samurai’, and ‘A Few Dollars More’ was a remake of ‘Yojimbo’ (and the Bruce Willis remake ‘Last Man Standing’ was……a remake of the remake!)

But the number of remakes of foreign films has picked up the last 10 years or so and so people have noticed that Hollywood films have gotten so expensive instead of cutting costs the industry has sought to tap into ideas that have already ‘worked’ elsewhere.

the issue is financing, no one can get financing without demonstrating a solid draw, sadly they all do that by showing how muhc money the film made back in the day

same thing on tv

originality is punished in Hollywood

the good news is this may save Dimension Films which is on the verge of banktupcy (its parent co Weinstein is)

They are remaking American Werewolf, Halloween (3D) and that may save it from its awful Zombiefication! (rob zombie not romero zombies) and Children of the Corn (which was JUST remade like this week it aired on SciFi)also forthcoming Scream 4

Gen Y has nothing, they remake all GEN Xs greatest hits, music sampled, tv shows respun, films YARMed

guess what Gen I am in, lol- X BABY! I am a SERIOUS horror fan and love to debate YARMS

but I will see the new Krueger cuz Thomas Dekker is in it and I miss TSCC, also I think that new actress Katie Cassidy is pretty good, she was in Harpers Island too…

Laura in Maryland on September 29, 2009 at 11:45 PM

Slap yourself right now, blasphemer.

I wonder, before the inevitable remakes of Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Police Academy

You should be so lucky! If you’ve missed them, Hoggywood is now down to to remakes of TV sitcoms; “Get Smart”, “Beverly Hillbillies”, etc. I’m waiting for the big screen thrill of “Gilligan’s Island”, “Mr. Ed”, and “My Mother the Car”.

oldleprechaun on September 30, 2009 at 7:57 AM

Car 54 Where Are You, Rawhide, Rin Tin Tin, Sky King, Whirlybirds, Rescue 8, Highway Patrol, 77 Sunset Strip,
Fireball XL5

I wonder, before the inevitable remakes of Ghostbusters, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, and Police Academy

You should be so lucky! If you’ve missed them, Hoggywood is now down to to remakes of TV sitcoms; “Get Smart”, “Beverly Hillbillies”, etc. I’m waiting for the big screen thrill of “Gilligan’s Island”, “Mr. Ed”, and “My Mother the Car”.

Gone With The Wind with Will Ferrel as Rhett Butler and Janeane Garofalo as Scarlett O’Hara.

Jeff from WI on September 30, 2009 at 5:28 AM

“With God as my witness, I’ll never shave again!”

Red State State of Mind on September 30, 2009 at 7:44 AM

LOL…Fiddle dee dee

Gone With The Wind with Will Ferrel as Rhett Butler and Janeane Garofalo as Scarlett O’Hara.

Jeff from WI on September 30, 2009 at 5:28 AM

“With God as my witness, I’ll never shave again!”

I saw they were reamaking “Fame”. Why?

vcferlita on September 29, 2009 at 9:25 PM

they want the royalties “..to live forever…”

Without POlitics: This trailer sucked, this movie is gonna suck, Don’t ruin a classic. Robert Englund made Freddy now Michael Bay seeks to undue him. He look horrible to boot.

If that trailer was “approved for all ages,” I’d hate to see the R rated version.

Well, if you read the green band it says that it’s approved for “appropriate audiences,” not “all ages.” Which means this trailer is going to be shown only in front of R rated and PG-13 rated films. And considering the trend towards PG-13 rated horror films, I don’t know if they’re planning on staying with the R rating or going with the “sissified” PG-13.

Another case where the book(s) is much better than the movie.