I hope this is a trend …

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You would think with a cast that includes Jennifer Hudson, Idris Elba, James Corden, Rebel Wilson, Judy, Dench, and Ian McKellan, that a movie would at least break even at the box office. Not so! According to many articles on the internet, the movie Cats is a HUGE box office bomb that is on track to lose millions of dollars!

https://wegotthiscovered.com/movies/cats-track-lose-71-million-universal/

Personally, this makes me happy. I truly hope that these movie remakes continue to fail miserably! I am SO done with the lack of originality in Hollywood! It seems that all producers know how to make these days are remakes of something that has already been made. Why?

Hollywood should be ashamed of the crap that they are producing these days! I have posted this argument before and I will continue to do so, as it is one of my biggest pet peeves! It has become painfully obvious that all they care about is money, and will do whatever it takes to make an over abundance of it with little work at all. There are millions of books available with original stories available on the shelves of libraries around the world, yet Hollywood will take something that is familiar and remake it with little or radicle changes (a female James Bond?!). Originality is non-existent in Hollywood today.

If they are not remaking a classic (and believe me, you can do an internet search right now and there are no less than 30 movies currently being considered that are all remakes), then they are throwing together a big cast of actors to voice an animated feature with little or no story line (a friend of mine on Facebook just went to see that Will Smith spy cartoon and said it was awful. That being said, there have been some very good animated features in the past few years, and in order to get in on the money, many studios are just throwing crap together!).

If a remake or cartoon won’t work, then Hollywood will take a film that had great success and make …. a sequel! Look at the number of sequels some movies have had!! Come on people, wake up! 98% of these sequels are just the SAME STORY with a twist or two. It is getting ridiculous! After the 3rd sequel, even the stars of the film don’t care – they know they are going to get their paycheck no matter what!

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It’s not just on the big screen either! Before Christmas, Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel once again did a live show where they redid an original script from All In The Family and Good Times (they did the Jeffersons last time). I blogged about this before, but I will say again … if this is nothing more than a word by word reproduction of shows with new actors trying to be imitate the actors and actresses associated with these iconic roles, why would I watch it? I would rather see the original. Carroll O’Connor IS Archie Bunker, no matter how good a job Woody Harrelson does! Again – NO ORIGINALITY!

I could write an entire blog on the topic of the content of these 70’s shows, and argue that if it is ok to air this reproduction with a warning about content, then why aren’t the originals running in reruns on a regular basis?! I won’t.

For now, let me just say that I hope that Cat’s loses millions – even billions! I hope that future remakes and crappy sequels do the same! I pray that someone in Hollywood realizes that there are so many great stories that would be perfect for the big screen that have NEVER been made into movies. THOSE are the movies that I want to see! Until then, I will continue to save my hard earned money, watch the originals, and hope that people will stop shelling out money to pad your pockets with money that deserves to go to whoever wrote the original story in the first place!

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Just my opinion…

Last night on ABC, Norman Lear and Jimmy Kimmel presented a live broadcast of two original scripts from All In Family and The Jeffersons.

I was working, so I only got to see bits and pieces of the show. I will give credit where it is due, however:

First, it was an all star cast, it almost had to be – look at the great people who were in the original roles! Some seemed to fit perfectly, others, well, not so much. Second, the sets we’re amazing! If I didn’t know, I’d swear they were shot on the actual set from the 70’s! Very well done. Lastly, kudos for doing it live. That takes guts.

Now, here’s my opinion:

I understand Jimmy Kimmel’s personal desire to do this. I also understand Norman Lear’s involvement. My question, however, is – why?

This wasn’t your typical reboot. With those, you either have the old cast reunite for some new episodes (like Rosanne, Will and Grace, and countless others), or you have new episodes with a new cast in a “updated version” of the show (Like the One Day at a Time on Netflix). This special, however, was a new cast in the classic roles doing a word by word rendering of an old script. That’s right – an old show, word for word, the only thing that changed was the cast.

I read an article about the reboot and Sally Struthers, who played Gloria on the original All in the Family, basically trashed the idea! She asked the same question I did – why? She stated that it would not be the same without the original stars. I tend to agree with her. Did we really need this?

Hollywood proves again that they are out of original ideas! It’s bad enough it’s a reboot, it’s also not an original story idea! It’s an old script! Sure, you could replace the Nixon references and make them Trump references and they still work. You can also point out that even though the script is 40+ years old, the story is relatable. That only proves my point of this blog (in my final thought below).

The characters of Archie and Edith and George and Louise will forever be associated with the actors who played them in my mind. (I was impressed with Jamie Foxx and Marissa Tomei’s performances, but they weren’t Sherman Hemsley’s or Jean Stapleton!)

Final Thought

While it was interesting to have these shows back with a new cast, I didn’t really understand the point. It was a word for word production of an old script. You know what? If you are going to do that….I’d rather you just air the original episodes. If they were good enough to copy word for word, then just play the original!

Thoughts?