monster squad

[tpfkabi]

remakes point people back to the original usually, don't they?

i imagine just about any movie rental store right now is out of their copies of the Burton Batman's, etc.

[gob]

Sure, but The Dark Knight is a whole different kettle of fish from 1989 Batman. It's a 60odd year old comic book character and so by definition has to be remade and story lines/characters repeated whether it be in comics or films, in order to keep existing.

The Monster Squad is more of a one-off, lightning in a bottle kind of thing. It doesn't need a re-working, or re-imagining or anything. As it stands it is a wonderful movie, perfectly of its time and pretty much corners the market on a movie pursuing that concept. I mean, I'm all for more Universal monster movies but in this context the story's already been told very very well.

[pete]

I've never seen the original, but in response to bigideas and matt who wrote about the robocop remake in the other thread - there's nothing intrinsically offensive about making a movie, but the trend of studio remakes is annoying because it's a little bit like witnessing something cool with a bunch of your friends, and then have that one particularly annoying friend telling his version of the story, which is a little bit like how you remember it, only more self-serving and creepily selective.  except, instead of the annoying friend you have a studio, banding together a thousand people.

[Ravi]

I first saw Monster Squad last year, so I have no special attachment to it, but I fear the humor of the original will be blunted to be more PC and that the remake will have a generally bland 2000s studio feel to it.

[tpfkabi]

ah, but what if they use Dekker's full original script?
wasn't there quite a bit cut out, or am i thinking of another film?

but yes, there definitely is something different in 80's kids movies that does not seem to be present today.
i'm not sure what it is exactly.
i don't know that it's content and PC-iness in all cases, because then i think of The Explorers and it's really clean from what i remember.
maybe it's the computer effects aesthetic attached to all current kid action films.

i really don't have high hopes, but there's not anything i can do about it.

[MacGuffin]

`The Monster Squad' Is Back In Action
By MIKE FLEMING; Deadline Hollywood
 
EXCLUSIVE: Paramount Pictures is remaking the 1987 film The Monster Squad. Rob Cohen, who produced the original, hopes to direct the remake. Cohen will produce with Platinum Dunes partners Michael Bay, Brad Fuller and Andrew Form, and they're meeting with writers.

A group of kids who worship the classic monsters suddenly discover that Dracula is in town, and he's got his pals Frankenstein, The Wolf Man, The Gill Man and The Mummy with him. The kids must stop their efforts to find an amulet that will give the creatures control of the world. Sounds a bit cheesy, but the film is beloved by fanboys.

The script was written by Fred Dekker and Shane Black before Lethal Weapon made the latter Hollywood's highest paid writer of the 1990s. Cohen was one of the producers on that film and many others before he transitioned to the director's chair. The film is at Paramount after Platinum Dunes moved there last fall.

[tpfkabi]

This just in....Cohen has gone on to another project and Paramount is in negotiations for Tim Burton to direct after he finishes work on his Addams Family remake.

or

Tim Burton is in negotiations with Paramount Pictures to remake the 2011 remake of The Monster Squad. The studio is eyeing a 2020 release.

[MacGuffin]

How the Monster Squad will be edgier. Bigger nards?
Source: SciFi Wire

The proposed reboot of the classic 1980s family monster movie The Monster Squad is moving forward, producers Brad Fuller and Andrew Form told us.

"We're out to writers right now," Form said. "We're going to start hearing takes this week. Hopefully we'll be off to the races writing that." Rob Cohen, producer of the 1987 original, is in line to direct.

The movie comes from Fuller and Form's Platinum Dunes, the company behind remakes of A Nightmare on Elm Street and Friday the 13th, and it marks a bit of a departure for them into family horror.

The original movie centered on a gang of movie-buff kids who actually had to battle Dracula, the Wolf Man, the Gill Man and the Mummy, with Frankenstein as an ally; it's mostly remembered now for the line "Wolf Man's got nards!" But Form and Fuller promise the reboot will be edgier.

"It seems like it stays within our wheelhouse, and yet it expands what we're doing just a little bit," Form said.

"It's a movie we're really excited about, because we loved movies like Goonies, Monster Squad," Form added. "To take a family adventure-type movie, make it scary, is something a little different for us."

Fuller added: "You're going to have those monsters in there, and Platinum Dunes is not going to make a movie with monsters where they're not scary.

"It's not a soft version," Form said.