Dear Hollywood, please come up with an original idea.I realize that’s a lot to ask. As a Reveille columnist, I have to come up with original ideas for my column every week. It’s a pain in the butt, but it’s not impossible.Everyone borrows a little from what has been done before – art is generative. But there’s a difference between borrowing a concept or character and making something new from it and simply taking a script and updating the lingo from a 1980s teen movie to a 2010 teen movie.I personally have no desire to rewatch the first “Footloose,” let alone a remake starring (insert current teen heartthrob – my money’s on Justin Bieber – here). Nor do I need to see a live-action, full-length 3-D version of “The Smurfs.” I wish I made that up, but it’s scheduled to hit a theater near you by August 2011.Studios and production companies have long been adapting books and other media into movies and television shows. Like most things in life, sometimes it works, and sometimes it doesn’t.But now more than ever before studios assume if a movie, television show or product was ever popular or achieved any sort of following, an updated-for-today-version will surely rake in similar piles of cash. Sometimes – like the recent “Clash of the Titans” remake – that does indeed happen. But other revamped franchises – like last summer’s “Land of the Lost” — lose money. I’ll be anxious to see how Paramount and Mattel’s recently proposed “Magic 8-Ball” movie does.I’m guessing “crappy.” I’m hoping “terribly.”Whether or not the movies make money is irrelevant to their actual quality – though most remakes lean more towards the “Transformers”-stupid end of the spectrum than the “Casino Royale”-awesome side.And I’m fine with that. I want them to fail. I want them to suck. Most of all, I want you to quit buying tickets to “Michael Bay Explodes Something From Your Childhood” in 3-D.If you stop showing up, my faith in American capitalism tells me they will stop “revamping” movies and TV shows by the dozen.Of course it’ll still happen from time to time – and that’s fine! Anyone remember the original 1932 version of “Scarface”? Of course not. Because the 1982 version has totally eclipsed it.That’s great. I have no problem with really wonderful, creative remakes every so often. But when three of last week’s top 10 highest grossing movies are remakes, we have a little problem. It’s getting out of hand.What bothers me most about so many studios remaking so many different things is not how crappy they are or how abundant they are. It’s the laziness.I want to see something new and different. I realize that cool, artsy-fartsy movies aren’t generally going to be big moneymakers and most of them don’t even show up in Baton Rouge theaters. I just want to see Hollywood produce a romantic comedy that’s never been made before and is actually funny.How sad and ridiculous is it that I am begging to see an original, entertaining movie? Those two qualities should not be mutually exclusive, and they should most definitely not be absent from popular movies.
Sara Boyd is a 23 year old general studies senior from Baton Rouge. Follow her on Twitter @tdr_sboyd.
__Contact Sara Boyd at [email protected]