Less than a decade ago, movie goers watched Peter Parker get bitten by a radioactive spider.
Next year, we’ll see that fateful bite all over again in “The Amazing Spider-Man,” the unnecessary reboot of the popular superhero franchise.
It’s not as if the 2002 “Spider-Man” film didn’t connect with audiences. The movie became a smash and spawned two profitable sequels. Director Sam Raimi captured Peter’s first few days as a superhero with wit and panache, and Tobey Maguire proved the perfect vehicle to sell it. So why must we experience it anew?
It’s simple. Popular culture circa 2011 is all about regurgitation.
Consider two of the biggest shows on television – “American Idol” and “Glee.” The former consists of amateurs belting out familiar tunes, a glorified karaoke bar with better sound and lighting. The latter essentially plows the same ground, but packages it around candy-colored sets with teens lip synching their hearts out.
Is anyone clamoring for either show to scrap the moldy American songbook? If they are, their voices are being drowned up by millions of their fellow Americans.
Consider how today’s animated films also use former chart toppers to pepper their stories. “Madagascar” dragged out “I Like to Move It” to get the kiddies’ toes a tapping. “Despicable Me” cranked up The Bee Gees’ “You Should Be Dancing” at a key moment in the film. The upcoming “Happy Feet 2″ trailer squeezes in as many Top 40 hits it can.
Let’s face it. It’s hard to write original music that appeals to the kind of broad demographic film studios crave. And it’s just as challenging to tell an original superhero story, not one we’ve already devoured through other media.
The saga of Peter Parker is ours, and we don’t mind reliving it every few years even if it was done right the first time. It’s like steering your car into the McDonald’s drive-thru lane and knowing you’ll get something 100 percent identical to the last McBurger you wolfed down.
Comfort food exists for a reason, and the same holds true for comfort cinema. But at some point the entertainment industry must deliver new stories or else wallow in a downward recycling spiral.
Re-packaging golden oldies works best when our entertainers keep delivering new hits for our amusement. The same holds true for modern filmmakers. Every time a reboot gets greenlit an original story is set aside, perhaps never to see the dim light of a movie house.
And if “The Amazing Spider-Man” clobbers the competition why not re-tell Batman’s origin story in a new film series? Who cares if both Tim Burton and Christopher Nolan already took a crack at it?
Where are the courageous filmmakers who demand to have their new visions brought to the screen? Without them, we’re left paying exorbitant ticket prices for the privilege of seeing stories we already know by heart.
So … who’s to blame? Is it cowardly movie studios fearful of embracing the new? Or, should we point the finger back at us, the consumer, the folks who can’t get enough of the same ol’ song (and story)?
(Photo: A sign of the times? Andrew Garfield recreates the origin story of a certain web-slinger in the upcoming film “The Amazing Spider-Man.”)
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{ 19 comments… read them below or add one }
I think this is part of the vicious circle that Hollywood is stuck in. Their product is tailored to appeal to a more and more narrow target audience–teenagers. The youngest audience that matters to them would have been 13 in 2002. Now they’re 22: getting up there in age, and therefore less important.
The current crop of teenagers were all too young to see it in the theaters, so it’s ripe for a remake. And so we’ll go on and on, with the same movies being made every 7-10 years.
Glee was fantastic for the first season and revolved around more than just the music….after season one it just sucked.
As for films, whatever happened to the grand idea that was touted that we’d have so many venues for artists/filmmakers, they could bypass the studio hollywood system altogether and make truly original works?
Instead what we get is the same old recycled, rebooted stuff on every platform of entertaiment. TV, movies, internet, it’s all the same. The problem is with the “artists” as well.
Frankly, who really cares anymore. Bread and circuses. I used to think that Shakespeare was Hollywood’s muse. Now the muse is an accountant. I’ve never watched Glee. I have actual male hormones and chromosomes. I’ve seen AI in passing. The ideal winner is a homogenized pretty-person. Anyone with original talent is vetted out by the last round or so. Movie remakes used to be reserved for classics that had aged enough to be unfamiliar or good concepts that were badly done. They at least required stylistic creativity to breath life into something revered. This short cycle remake craze doesn’t make sense. The James Bond franchise keeps going with new stories and new Bonds. Why can’t Batman or Spider-man? Do we have to see the origin over and over? How soon until YouTube, the Movie.
Its more a question of TV being a female-gay ghetto, and the reboot of Spider-Man being a search for a cheaper lead actor and director/producer.
Guys don’t like singing and dancing, and much music period. Its become “gay” like a Broadway musical, or Project Runway. You could also point to American Idol and Glee and say that TV totally depends on a female audience, having given up on men, and that the whole model of advertiser supported TV needs massive female consumerism to survive. A questionable prospect these days given the economy.
As for “new” stuff, well Taken was new. So was “From Paris with Love.” The Avengers movie is new, the first big budget superhero team up movie.
I’d say the larger cultural question is how a female embrace of recycled pop hits in American Idol and Glee have led men to simply abandon pop/rock music. And how that could replay in Hollywood’s main money-maker — action movies.
“good concepts that were badly done.”
Zardoz. That would be something with the right director.
“The penis is evil and shoots seeds……”
It’s all about branding! Somewhere along the line, “branding” became more important than trying something new. If a familiar title like “Bewitched” can connect with today’s audience, why create something new? Most movie series (“Harry Potter” is a notable exception) suffers with each installment. By the time “Spider-Man 3″ and “Batman & Robin” rolled around, critics and audiences were weary. Hollywood’s thinking is to give a franchise a shot in the arm by telling the same story all over again but by different people. It’s like bands covering a song. Might be interesting to see someone else’s take, but is it necessary? Although series TV is more creative than movies at the moment, reboots and remakes of “classic” series are being developed. Sometimes it works for the better (“Battlestar Galactica”), but most of the time (“The Fugitive,” “Bionic Woman,” “The Prisioner”), not so much!
whiskey,
“Guys don’t like singing and dancing, and much music period.”
Actually, I know plenty of guys who actually like “singing and dancing, and much music”. In fact, I have brother who performs theatre and his girlfriend’s dad has done theatre as well.
As for tv being a female-gay ghetto. I send you here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wVT0B3pPsa8
I think what we are actually dealing with is a phobia of originality.
Doing something original is difficult. But if done well, as Chris. Nolan with INCEPTION and Pixar has proven, can be profitable.
Not that remakes should not be done, Furious D has a few suggestions.
http://dknowsall.blogspot.com/2011/05/hollywood-babble-on-on-728-mgm-needs.html
Unless its adapted someone like Shakespeare, Twain, or Dickens, there is no reason to remake a movie if it was done right before.
No need to remake MALTESE FALCON, CARRIE,
Crack open some old pulp fiction works. Look into short stories by Louis L’Amour for western movies.
There are plenty of Grimm and H.C. Anderson stories that Disney can do. And if they do a feature-length movie half as well as they did “The Little Match Girl” then the film industry will be well-served.
And sci-fi, just peruse the sci-fi magazines to find a good movie.
Give it a good director, screenwriter, and a lead that you can trust to fill theatres and you are set.
That seems to be quite hard for Hollywood.
Oh, and do it cheap. Little need for many movies to cost over $150 million, unless it is going to be LORD OF THE RINGS big.
And even then, cut back.
As for the SPIDER-MAN reboot/screwing over of Sam Raimi, Sony Pictures can go straight to heck.
Plenty of testostrone here, I like singing and dancing and stand by my Glee comment.
I think a lot of it is the fear of gambling. Case in point, Universal took a huge gamble when they made Scott Pilgrim. It tanked.
It’s better to try and bet on a proven winner (superhero movies for example) then to try to take that risk and end up losing $40-$50 million.
Fictional TV is indeed a female/gay-centric zone these days. Though this is not Toto’s point. I’m not sure why he used “Glee” as his prime example because it actually doesn’t get very good ratings.
Hollywood studios have just given up on the male audience entirely. This is due in part to the outsized representation and influence of gays in the agencies and studio suites.
No wonder young males are turning almost exclusively to video games. It’s the only place where they can see unalloyed action that isn’t watered down with a soap opera storyline (like every “action” show on TV these days). Live sports and a handful of reality shows are pretty much the only places for real guys to turn to these days on TV.
@Kit — Points taken, but the popular Maltese Falcon (1941) was a remake of a version only 10 years its senior.
I must be one of the few people that didn’t like the Sam Rami version of Spider Man. I say his version since he has admitted it was his version of the comic and it showed. The story and a lot of the characters and how they were portrayed were counter to what was in the original comics I collected from 1974 till 2001.
Rami never captured Peter Parker in my opinion, nor did he even come close to Mary Jane by casting a faux red head and making her weak. The Real Mary Jane was positive, upbeat and never admitted defeat, she was the rock that Peter Parker turned to when his resolve wavered. Instead Rami made her a cringing, self doubting, wanna be actress who is ashamed of who she is and where she came from, all the while doubting the person she counted as a friend. Peter Parker while being considered a book worm and shy in high school used his persona as Spider Man to make a difference and to let out the hidden stronger side of himself behind the costume. Rami turned him into a shell of the original who doubted everything he did, was constantly afraid and always making mistakes and hurting those around him. As the series went on everyone became cry babies and walked around wringing their hands at everything. It was depressing and not entertaining at all, nothing like the comic series.
So to me this reboot is the chance to make the Spider Man I grew up reading and enjoying a truer version of the comic legend.
“Where are the courageous filmmakers who demand to have their new visions brought to the screen? Without them, we’re left paying exorbitant ticket prices for the privilege of seeing stories we already know by heart.”
Well, people in the Middle Ages seemed never to get tired of hearing about Arthur, Lancelot or Roland…
Eric,
I am well aware of MALTESE FALCON being a remake.
So what’s your take on possibly changing your opinion of “No need to remake MALTESE FALCON, CARRIE,…” with that in mind? We wouldn’t have the classic version had your sentiment held true back then, right?
@Batton Lash
+1 Dead on target.
Well, the thing to remember is that the studio would’ve been quite content with a “Spider-Man 4,” but they kept meddling with Raimi’s vision. Right or wrong, Raimi didn’t like the way the project was shaping up and wanted more time to work out the bugs, but the studio wouldn’t budge. He left in amicable fashion and Maguire went with him.
I am concerned with this reboot because it seems so ill-thought out. I mean, they wouldn’t give Raimi time to work out the bugs in a project that already had a cast and crew largely in place, but they decided to start a whole new project that required all sorts of pre-production work that would push things back anyway? And that picture doesn’t inspire confidence. As I’ve said before, it looks more like a kid playing dressup than a hero ready to assume his destiny.
I saw the preview of the upcoming Spiderman re-boot before Captain America, it was dark, depressing and gave me absolutely no desire to see it when it comes out next year.
Modern Hollywood (since Star Wars) has been all about trying to milk as much money out of that demographic as they can. It has just become more prevalent as time goes on. Other movies aimed at adult audiences are getting rarer and with every miss like Green Lantern, the studios feel they need to double down to re-coup their losses. It’s like a vicious cycle.