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Originally Posted by doctorbongo
I have a great idea. Write something new.
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I have to agree. Were I king, there would need to be a certain threshold met before a remake project could proceed. Such as the original story showed promise but was so horribly botched by the director that the resulting film was a disaster. (I do put the blame entirely on the director too. It is his job to get the performances he needs from his actors and hold the story together. You can look at Altman for "MASH" (Sutherland & Gould wanted him fired) or Gondry and what he got out of Jim Carrey in "Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind".) If the director totally botches the original, it might be a candidate for remake.
Case in point, the first "Dune". What a mess. So bad it was rescued by Sci-Fi channel in their own remake that exceeds the original in virtually every way. But the list gets pretty short after that. "Planet of the Apes" is rightly mentioned here. I could not agree more that the original was a masterpiece. It was spare, with great plot twists, & shocking reveals. Perhaps the most interesting was the knowledge being concealed by Dr. Zaius. Great stuff! The remake? Talk about an abomination. Who thought Tim Burton would be the right pick for this? He's fine in the genre he prefers but when you throw in his re-envisioning of the original Boulle story you have a absolute trainwreck. "Planet of the Apes" is an excellent example of an awful remake.
In looking back at the -books that should be made into films thread-, I can think of another 50 or so to add that have never been anywhere near a theater. Fertile ground for the screenwriter and absolutely fuels the posit above, "Write something new."