Funny thing. Just a couple weeks ago when exiting the Edgar Wright-hosted screening of David Cronenberg's The Brood I commented on how surprised I was that Cronenberg had remained untouched in this current wave of horror film remakes. The man's body of work has stood up remarkably well and, in many ways, watching his films now makes an even greater argument for the man's genius than they did on original release. He was almost prescient on a great number of issues, his fears and obsessions ringing every bit as true now as they did when originally put on film. But nobody had touched him, which seemed odd in a world where Romero's catalog was being plundered.
Well, no more.
The first of the classic Cronenberg's to be remade will be Videodrome, Universal setting up the project with The Ring writer Ehren Kruger set to write and produce. Ah well ... if it had to happen at least they got themselves a writer with some history of doing a good job on the remake front, The Ring being one of the better ones going ...
Let me begin:
NOooOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOoooooooOOOOooo!!!
Funny ... when Sion Sono visited Brussels at the BIFFF last year ... he mentioned he was planning on doing a "sort of" remake/take on Cronenberg's Videodrome ... I think they are still cleaning up the drool from the select audience there ...
Now THAT I would gladly go see ... but a Hollywood re-make : NOooOO ...(see post above) ...
Actually, I would like to see someone take this type of stuff in in 2009. This one is actually one I can get behind.
Since they're running out of options with asian horror and John Carpenter's films this was even a bit predictable. Next one is Argento for sure, then it will probably be Del Toro's Cronos, a Gremlins remake and pretty much a remake of any horror movie that came out in the 70s and 80s.
Oh, Argento's been in the works for a good while now. David Gordon Green is doing Suspiria.
Yeah, I'm a little worried about Suspiria myself...I can't imagine Natalie Portman in the lead role (she's just too old), and I don't think the original can be improved upon.
Regarding Videodrome, I don't have much hope. While I'm with Kurt that it would be interesting to see where he goes with this (with the dawn of the Internet and porn-on-demand, Videodrome is even more pertinent today than it was when it was first released), Eheren Kruger isn't the ideal writer for this remake. Despite the fact that I liked his Ring, at his best he's good at straightforward crowd-pleasers (Skeleton Key wasn't bad, Arlington Road was lots of fun), and at his worst...well, he fucked up a Terry Gilliam film, let's leave it at that. He isn't nearly a cerebral enough writer to tackle something as layered as Videodrome. I honestly cannot imagine how he's going to handle this.
VHS is defunct.
What the hell are they going to call it?
AVIDrome?
Is this really the first? I've read that "Shivers", "The Brood" and "Scanners" have all been slated for remakes.
wow....that sucks.
i agree with geekofevil, vhs is dead.
however, broadcasting (which is the other big part of the film) is on it's way out as well. so, what, this remake will be almost entirely about digital feeds...downloadable content...torrents...streaming media? what's the point of remaking videodrome? when the film came out it featured technology of the time. why not write a brand new film about todays technology and leave well enough (and unbroken) alone?
hollywood sucks.
Good call on Assayas. You might want to check out Boarding Gate if you liked Demonlover. It is sort of the spiritual sequel in my mind. Although the technology aspect is not really in Boarding Gate, but the mood is there.
@ Kurt - Actually, I did check it out. I couldn't finish it. Michael Madsen drives me INSANE in certain roles, and this turned out to be one of them. Both he and Bill Paxton are in the same group of actors that I like to label, "Here - Fire this gun at shit and SHUT UP."
That's the only way I can watch them.
Is there a cut of the film which is just all shots of Asia Argento in various states of undress and maybe a couple of gun fights?
...
now I'm getting off track.
I don't see any problem with the title, video is the format, not the media (VHS, DVD, Blu Ray - it's still video).
but that's beside the point, this is one film I will NOT be needing to watch. Cronenberg's film will be more relevant even after this remake is forgotten a few months after its release.
maybe none of the executives in Hollywood can read anymore, and they need visuals to help them develop ideas for "new" films