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'The Matrix' Reboot: It's Finally Happened. Hollywood Has Run Out of All the Ideas (qz.com)
An anonymous reader shares a Quartz report: In our hearts, we all knew this day would come. Warner Bros. is planning a reboot of The Matrix just 18 years after the iconic sci-fi action film dazzled audiences around the world, according to the Hollywood Reporter. The Matrix films were lauded for their creativity, special effects, and distinct cyberpunk and manga influences. In total, the trilogy grossed over $1.6 billion worldwide. The Matrix will join other famous film properties -- Star Wars, Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, and Terminator among them -- receiving a recent franchise reboot or "reimagining." Others include RoboCop, Star Trek, Ghostbusters, and Jurassic Park. Meanwhile, reboots of Indiana Jones, Predator, Jumanji, and every superhero movie that's ever existed, are scheduled to hit theaters soon. And TV, for its part, is a dystopian wasteland of bland prequels to famous action movies. Hollywood relying on tentpole franchises, instead of taking risks on original ideas, is not new or surprising. But many believed that certain properties like The Matrix were off limits -- at least so soon after originally being made. It's clear now, though, that the major film studios can't afford to wait. They have no other ideas. This puts the studios in a precarious situation, because the once tried-and-true strategy of inundating cinemas with popular franchise extensions no longer looks as foolproof as it used to.
remake 2 & 3. They were garbage.
The Matrix *film* was lauded for *its* creativity...
Whoa.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
They'll screw it up as they did with Point Break
I think the submitter meant Star Trek not Star Wars. Star Trek got the re-imagining, Star Wars has merely had more delivered of the pre-envisaged canon.
I wonder how long we'll have to wait before a proper new and original franchise star up. I'd like to see Elric or the Ian M. Banks Culture stories
It's good luck to be superstitious
and when movies try to go beyond that, like Star Trek The Motion Picture, people complain endlessly.
NOW you perceive the film industry has run out of ideas? In 2017? More likely, those who voted this to the front page just happen to be in the 35 to 40 year old zone where the banality of popular entertainment starts to become intuitively obvious even to those with no critical thinking skills. Not news. Status quo.
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Look the first one was kind of a twist. But to save it they need to go 'down the rabbit hole'. The matrix and 'the real world' were just layers in the matrix. Now it is a mater of how deep does it go? Maybe the "AI"s were actually real people and the people were really "AI"s and it inverts every few levels. Just leave out the 20 mins of rave and don't break the movie into 3 pieces when it really should have been 2. Stop trying to force analogies or social commentary in. Go with the premise and bang it home.
But for gods sake just make more Karl Urban Dread movies. People skipped an amazing action movie because of what they did to it in the 90s.
not as made due to divorce issues, then I might actually look forward to this.
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They've been out of ideas since at least Rocky II.
I'm really afraid now.
As I understand it, it isn't a reboot per se. Rather, it will be another story set in "The Matrix Universe." So rather than the story of the Nebuchadnezzar, it will center on the crew of, say, the Ganesha. Make it a prequel.
Think something like "Star Wars: Rogue One" or something similar.
Maybe go with the original this time? Get William Gibson to adapt it for them?
Just make proper sequels
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I don't believe they have run out of ideas. They don't want to take on the risk of launching a movie with no history given the costs associated with creating a major sci-fi/fantasy movie.
It's actually rather sad, between the comic book universe and the "remaking" of existing franchises, there's a ton of really great stories that fail to make it to the big screen as a result.
John Wick 3: The Matrix
On the run from fellow assassins, John decides to change his identity, and become Neo. Neo then encounters a group of terrorists, and is offered a chance to see the truth. The world, as it really is. After some stuff Neo/John returns and fights a bunch of terminators.
The End.
Ideas are plentiful. I can come up with ideas. Some might even be decent movies.
But ideas are risky. Making a movie is expensive, especially a big-title blockbuster. Tens, even hundreds of millions of dollars for the very biggest. $63,000,000 for the Matrix. Of course studios aren't going to gamble that kind of money on new, unproven ideas. They will spend it on things that they know have a proven history of financial success. Franchises, sequals, spin-offs. Things the market has assessed, and judged worthy. Stars with a track record of drawing in the crowds. Stories that are packed with cliches, but cliches that audiences have always responded positively to.
This assures hollywood of profits, but it also means all movies start to look the same after a while. If you want new material you will have to look to independent productions, where they can take risks - but be warned, Sturgeon's law holds, and you will have to wade through a lot of horrible B-movies and obscure review websites to find the hidden gems.
Oh no, I've gone cross-eyed.
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
Can't they just milk Ghost In The Shell? Or, instead of reboot, couldn't they just make a new sequel trilogy?
The Hollywood business is currently driven by metrics that put incredible emphasis on the immediate payout over the long-term health of franchises and eventual returns that used to come with home video sales. Part of this has been driven by the digitization of movies and music and part of it is the marketing of instant gratification.
Much of this has to do with Wall Street's insistence for quarterly returns since this is where movie studios have to go to if they want the cash to make them. It's also why you've seen movie budgets both explode and shrink at the same time. The banks want their money at a return rate which would make most mobsters blush. If you're not going to produce a hit that will, at minimum, return triple its costs then you'll not get financed. On the other hand if you can keep the costs down in the single digit millions, then plain curiosity during opening weekend will likely see profit.
The stuff in the middle doesn't return fast enough for anyone to care about getting it made. Forty million for a movie these days? Forget it. Hollywood can't make the guarantees it can with a budget of two-hundred million. You want the movie to grow an audience through word of mouth? Forget it. Hollywood doesn't have the patience for that to happen. It needs the numbers to come up in the black inside of the next twelve weeks, not in the next two years.
I really hate to say this, but it could technically work.
In the original matrix movies, the matrix and zion kept getting rebuild and they were already on their 6th generation or something.
So this could be the generation after
That said, I still think they shouldn't do it.
Hollywood never had any "original" ideas. That's neither good nor bad. Many of the best films in cinematic history were adaptations, remakes or -- FSM forbid -- reboots. The fact of the matter is, ideas matter somewhat, but execution is always going to be Paramount. Yes, that was a weak pun.
Pffft
They would remake CHIPS or Baywatch into movies before they would ever even think of BTTF. You are safe at least until they decide to make those two old TVs shows into movies, like that would ever happen.
Films? There is only one Matrix film. There were never any sequels.
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if you only watch non-original remakes. TV is not "a dystopian wasteland of bland prequels to famous action movies". If you count Netflix, Amazon, Cable channels like HBO and the BBC (and you should), there are tons of original stories being told. I'm in the middle of season one of Taboo and absolutely blown away by the depth and grit of this story (and Tom Hardy's acting is awesome in it).
Yes, there is tons of dreck on TV and in the movies, but you don't have to watch it. If you don't want a world of rehashes and reboots and generally unnecessary exploitation of stories already told, change the channel / don't buy the ticket.
There's hundreds of movies that come out each year, maybe 10% of which are prequels or re-makes. If I go to AV Club and look up their reviews of recent movies, I see:
After The Storm, Taipei Story, Frantz, The Sense Of An Ending, Raw, Personal Shopper, My Scientology Movie, Actor Martinez, Kong: Skull Island, The Last Word, The Shack, Table 19, Catfight, Before I Fall, Wolves, Donald Cried, Logan, I Don’t Feel At Home In This World Anymore, Collide, Rock Dog, Ash Brannon
20 movies, only two of which are big re-makes/sequels of well-known action movies. So what's the problem? If you don't like franchise movies, the large majority of movies being created aren't re-makes/sequels.
It's like saying all music today is terrible because you hate country...just listen to something else!
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They already did a remake, it was called "The Lego Movie"
Hollywood has made more money from abroad than in the US for a while now. It's now to the point that they are making movies primarily for foreign consumption and merely showing them here.
That is also why a lot of movies are full of explosions, and don't have much confusing plot (woohoo transformers!), because that is easy to translate into any language and culture. Seriously, check out these numbers.
"First they came for the slanderers and i said nothing."
hey, we're giving you Ghost in the Shell, you nerds love that one, quit yer whining!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
They've been out of ideas since at least Rocky II.
Yeah, that Rock 1 idea of a young guy finding a wise old mentor, preparing well, and overcoming great odds was original at the time. ;-)
Hollywood can't help but do this now. It's all that's left to them.
Every film nowadays has a budget of hundreds of millions of dollars, mostly thanks to Hollywood accounting practices. To invest that kind of money you have to be able to show the principals an expected return on that investment. You need to do market analysis and show that you have an audience large enough to get that return.
The only way to do that is to copy older blockbusters and assume the returns will be in the ballpark. Hence, reboots.
Look at Deadpool if you want to know about risk aversion. The studio did NOT want to make that movie. It was "risky". Imagine living in a world where you would think that a Deadpool movie was too risky. That's why they're going for The Matrix. The two sequels were garbage but still made bank. So they know that this reboot will too.
It's the beginning of the end for Hollywood, IMO. Their model can only support smash blockbusters, and now they're out of them.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
Is it Hollywood that has run out of ideas... or the architect?
On the Beeb, at least something original (to the screen) is coming.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
Fuck me.
I'm old.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Maybe he could be Agent Smith and Agent Smith could be Neo's transgendered gay lover..? I think that's what millennials like these days.
I'm guessing that if you have a VHS Tape or DVD of a movie which is being "rebooted" or "reimagined" then you could be a target of big film-maker lawyers because you have a competing work which could hurt the value of the new product.
Hopefully I'm not giving any studio suits any ideas - I'd hate to go to the clink because I owned a copy of the Matrix part 3.
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They'll screw it up as they did with Point Break
I think the problem is that there isn't an asshole shortage in Hollywood.
SJW n. One who posts facts.
a cinematic adaptation of Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon or even Reamde. Either of these would be great, but the former could be an epic experience given the right producer and directors.
The Amber Chronicles is a swashbuckling matrix with infinite universes between Amber and the Courts of Chaos. Do that.
A whole new generation has grown up, one that hasn't seen the originals but is of age to see the new ones and milk mom and pop for the ticket, gas money and concession.
Hollywood ran out of ideas at least as far back as the 1990's. That's one of the reasons The Matrix was as popular as it was: It was, in many ways, an original thought.
I agree with others on this; leave The Matrix alone. It doesn't need to be 'rebooted', it doesn't need a 'remake'. Leave it be.
I can't wait until the reboot Ghostbusters 2016 with an all male cast.
Can we stop with this reinventing of the language and stick with the words that really describe what they're doing? They're doing remakes. The only reboot I've seen is Star Trek, where they used time travel to radically change the universe, but it's technically the same universe (or multiverse) as everything that had preceded it. The new Battlestar Galactica pushed the term "reImagining" to stress that they were changing the story and doing it differently, but it was still a remake (a fantastic one).
Movies in a franchise are generally either a remake or a sequel (or prequel). I'm not sure I would use the term "sequel" for the James Bond movies, where each one tends to be an independent storyline with few sequential aspects, but loosely speaking they fit the definition.
they are about as good at coming up with new ideas for films as there at coming up with new distribution methods.
... taken the red pill
It's not a popular opinion, but I actually enjoyed all 4 matrix movies and am looking forward to more story in that cinematic universe.
I thought it would lead to layered realities, and that it would expose that many people are perfectly content in the baseline Matrix, some people's minds rebel. These people are identified and hooked to a 2nd Matrix in which they are made aware of the baseline Matrix, can interact with it, pursue their hero fantasies each to their own level necessary (Neo needed to be the One, Trinity need to be in love with the One, Morpheus had to be the one to find the One...) and steered into the whole Zion mythos.
A few might, like Neo, once exposed to he baseline Matrix, realize that they could be in a 2nd-level Matrix and find themselves able to manipulate it as well. At that point a 3rd..N+1 level matrix would be unnecessary. Those unlucky few would just be lobotomized by the machines and put back in the soup. The effort to entertain the chosen ones with Matrix 2 is justified only by the notion that the undamaged brains allow more wetware computing power to be utilized (i.e., humans not just batteries).
Neo getting a big needle in his brain may have been an unpleasant ending. Perhaps once the battle of Zion happened, the 3rd movie would end with a "reset" back to Neo first waking up in Scene 1 of the first matrix. They can just keep Groundhog Daying the hell out of Zion.
That is the sound of inevitability. It is the sound of creativity's death.
The studios primarily care about profits reaped with minimal risk. The glut of prequels, sequels, reboots, and adaptations is happening because those properties are already known among the population and have a built-in audience.
Consequently, original material gets shoved aside. Hollywood writers should be pissed because they're not being utilized to their fullest extent. At this rate, Avatar may be the last original property to originate in Hollywood.
after all that was a bit of a fresh idea.
This time Neo is a black lesbian transsexual.
[Citation needed]. Here's mine.
Whoa.
LOL, brilliant. This is a terribly written article, for the simple reason that it fails to identify if the studios are doing a remake, a reboot, or simply adding more stories in the same 'Wachowskverse'. Remakes are usually dimwitted rewrites of old classics, (I challenge anyone here to name a remake that was better than the original.) while adding more stories occasionally yields real gems like Aliens, Empire Strikes Back, and T2. Reboots are somewhere in between where an existing IP is rewritten and started over again, such as thee fucking mess that Sony has been making of the Spider-man franchise for the better part of twenty years now. I might be willing to watch more new stories set in the same world, but I really don't need to see a new Neo movie.
Look Hollywood, if you aren't going to try to write new stories about new IP, at least write new stories about old IP rather than remake and reboot the same old stuff over and over again. We are bored with the same story over and over again.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
How come there is no movie adaptation of neuromancer? That's where the matrix name comes from.
It's probably no easy task to adapt it in a way that is both entertaining to a large audience and not disappointing to fans of the book at the same time, but I believe it's doable.
epic, simply epic
They better get chopping if they're ever going to get Jaws 19 in the theaters!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Staring Stalone at 98 years old.
They haven't rebooted these yet.
But they will soon!
Hollywood ran out ideas long ago. Witness the shot for shot remake of Psycho almost TWO DECADES ago.
The Matrix borrowed heavily from "Ghost in the Shell", which ironically is coming to USA theaters next week(?) as a remake or reimagining of the already decent anime-movie from a zillion years ago.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
I think this was Richard Jeni. I don't remember the exact skit, but it was something like:
they told you they were rebooting the Matrix and .... no one showed up.
MAKE. THE. FILM. I don't care who we have to kill and or resurrect.
Spider-man has had three "boots" in 15 years.
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
If we're going to see reboots it is one of the best for an update with more modern cgi. It's probably the last film I went to a cinema to see and I was blown away but it has aged - I look forward to seeing it have a new life. Maybe 2&3 will get fixed too, that would win over the majority of it is done right
It's not a barren wasteland there, pick classic Chinese martial arts movies that weren't shown here e.g. Rage of Wind (Not Crouching Tiger....go back thirty years or so) but remake them in English. Both versions will make money. Don't make sequels because the two leads meet again in a different movie, with a much longer final fight. No need to put explosions--this isn't Dragonball but kids will have a lot of fun, not from faking kung fu moves but speaking in dubbed English.
RingWord, RingWorld Engineers, and if you need a 3rd for a 'Trilogy' make it up!
Stranger in a Strangeland - ok, sure there's a lot of 'icky' parts that conservatives won't like (homosexuality, group sex, eating of dead people) but hey we're supposed to be living a 'liberal Utopia' aren't we? Still, they could 'reimagine' the concept without all the 'icky parts' in it.
Combine 'The Man Who Sold the Moon' with 'Requiem', modify slightly for reality (e.g. clearly it can't be about going to the moon for the 1st time but rather 'commercializing' space travel to the moon & colonizing of it...Elon Musk can play Harriman. :-)
Heck, you want to create a long running series of movies take Roger Zelazny's Amber series. There's enough books there to keep studios busy for a couple of decades!
Seriously, the only thing holding these people back is lack of imagination & laziness. But that's ok, we won't need them much longer I'm sure as Netflix, Amazon & even small production companies using computers will be able to make movies 'on the cheap' so to speak with great visuals (and hopefully acting of course), the 'Major Studios' can go suck an egg as far as I'm concerned.
NOW you perceive the film industry has run out of ideas? In 2017?
Well, let's see here.
They started making a movies of video games, such as "Doom", which had very thin plots.
Then they started making movies of video games that had no discernable plot, such as "PacMan".
Then they started making movies of *board* games, such as "Battleship".
(Monopoly (the movie) is apparently in production.)
Battleship? Really?
I'm sure the studios still have a lot of ground to cover. I anxiously look forward to "solitaire, the movie" in the next year or two.
What's with this opinion about TV shows? TV has been getting better ever since networks figured out they could be successful by producing fewer episodes and focusing more on quality. Especially if you count Netflix and Amazon originals as "TV shows." And how many "prequels to famous action movies" are even out there. I only know of Sarah Connor Chronicles, Taken and the two Star Wars cartoon series. That hardly qualifies as a "wasteland". (And the Star Wars cartoons are very good, IMO.)
What they want is properties that are already familiar. It's not ideas that are the problem, it's that they want something with a name that is already familiar before you even start advertising. Hence movies based on board games, computer games, old plotless cartoons (Speedracer) and so on and so on. Oh, and the Matrix ain't so grate anyway. That bit where 'we're batteries'. Man, that just deflated the whole film it is so stupid. I was sitting there going 'really? Really? That's the big reveal?' What Hollywood wants is a name that you know before they even advertise.
At least you're not going to find some good Sci-Fi and screw it up. Don't expect to make any money on Blu-Rays and Streaming when you remake old crap though.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
for a matrix remake. maybe 2020-2030. is not reimaging though just making the original better graphics effects and image quality.
Translation: "I only go see big budget blockbusters and I don't understand why Hollywood would rather bet that money on a proven franchise or remake rather than a riskier original film. Plus I'd rather whine about it than risk going to see smaller, independent films that might be original!"
Once more proving there is nothing they can't fuck up.
So where's my gritty Quantum Leap reboot? Priorities people!
At long as the movies don't end with some half assed, spiritual nonsense that the originals did.
Matrix will join other famous film properties -- Star Wars,...receiving a recent franchise reboot or "reimagining."
Star wars has had prequels (ep 1,2,3, Rogue One) and a sequel (Ep 7), but there has been no reboot or reimagning.
Can Charlie Sheen play Neo and Leslie Nielsen play Orpheus?
Finally happened? What, like 15 years ago? Hey, way to keep up with the times. Hell I would say it's even longer when you look in to how many film are actually re hashes of black and white films most people under the age of 45 have never heard of.
https://xkcd.com/1757/
and of course, the classic
https://xkcd.com/891/
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
Only instead of starring Eric Stoltz, this one was filmed with Michael J. Fox in the lead role.
Bottle. Lightning. All 1.21 gigawatts of it.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
Who got autism after being vaccinated
Though the autist child will save the day...
A while back I wrote a brief synopsis of how I thought the Matrix trilogy should have gone that was kinda similar to your idea except for the ending.
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From Wikipedia
The movie started life as a script called Bug Hunt at Outpost Nine.[2] When similarities, especially the "bugs," were pointed out between this and the novel Starship Troopers, plans were made to license the rights to the book and tweak character names and circumstances to match.
No Hollywood blockbusters have "new ideas". None. Zero. They are all formulaic and have nothing new. That is because they are for-profit franchises and they goal is to sell as much as possible. Just like all commercial music. They cater to the masses. It's not that they can't come up with better ideas - it's that they want to make money and understand what they are doing way better than anyone who complains about the lack of originality in Hollywood.
Really? The matrix reboot was the trigger?
I mean, really, there was 4 Sharknado movie. I've found that they run out of ideas a looooooong time ago.
Elok
For me as a long in the tooth trekkie, that was a great homage to the original series with some funny and poignant moments. Sadly II was poor and I didn't bother with III
Its reboot of Survivors was unimpressive. Their reboot of Dr Who is superb.
It is the virtue of their funding model - a poll tax on TV viewers - is that it enables them to be adventurous. Jonathan Strange and Mr Norrel was excellent although the first episode dragged. Let's hope 'Good Omens' is as good.
They're all real. Though the popular thought is that ther is a "real" universe somewhere to which all other universes are fake, but that's absurd and I'll do my best to explain why to anyone who wants to shoot holes in the premise.
Overall attendance is theaters is DOWN. I know a few movie theaters that have closed. Most of the problem, is the over INFLATED prices, not to mention there are more choices today, but, for me anyway, the lack of CREATIVITY in the movies they do release. When a movie becomes "a hit" what do they typically do? Part 2,3,4,5,6,7 and on. The story line is nothing more than blowing stuff up, explosions, CGI with NO SCRIPT. Get it Hollyweird? NO SCRIPT. The only thing Hollyweird knows how to do these days, is recycle something that is 20,30 years old. If a "typical family of four" goes to a first run movie, just in ticket prices, they are looking at usually 30-50 bucks and at least that amount for drinks/popcorn, not to mention the fuel to get to the movies and back, the hassle with parking. Or you can WAIT a month or two and see it on redbox for a buck if you really want to see it. The so called golden era of Hollywood ended, in the 2000's.
The future industry has gotten really bland lately and nobody can come up with any ideas because global warming ate the future. To have a vision of the future where there is not a for certain global warming apocalypse is considered politically incorrect. Thus, nobody can write anything interesting about the future that is not an eco-doom disaster movie remake. Also, the whole Snowden/NSA thing made any dystopian surveillance fantasy passe. I think there was even a sci-fi author who gave up on a book about a dystopian surveillance state because it was already here.
The last sci-fi things I liked was Dark Matter, kind of felt highly Serenity influenced. Incorporated was ok, but too much eco-doom and hyper violence.
Hollywood demands that authors of original works sign one-sided contracts that obligate them to give up their publishing and copyrights in exchange for a cut of the net profits. The problem with "net profits" is that Hollywood uses "Hollywood Accounting" tricks to turn profits into a loss and deprive authors of royalty payments. There's a REASON why established actors demand payment UP FRONT.
Some authors have sought legal relief and won, but the process is prohibitively expensive enough to discourage litigation - and Hollywood knows it. The authors may have had their day in court but they have lost control of their original material forever, as those contracts are sealed in iron-clad concrete that the control freak entertainment industry refuses to give up.
The problem isn't the lack of new ideas. The true problem is that authors have been screwed by Hollywood for so long that they refuse to sell their original works that could be made into a movie or TV show. Hollywood can't find authors willing to sell them new ideas, so they re-hash existing ones in their control into re-makes, sequels, prequels, baby versions, et al all in a formulaic process. Small wonder that there is little original material coming out of Hollywood anymore. How many more damn re-makes of "King Kong" does the world need?
Eternity: will that be smoking, or non-smoking? I Corinthians 6:9-10
Good comment. This is also true of "I, Robot", which was based on a non-Asimov novel called "Hardwired" or similar. However, why do all movie threads on slashdot go to this topic?
Cloudiot: A person who does not see offsite storage as a way to lose control over access to his or her own data.
Now things were relatively fresh back then. Still some new ideas being tried out for the first time. Yes, the acting is different than today and the special effects are horrible. But if you keep it in context, then the movies from that era are actually quite good and enjoyable. The plots actually have more than one dimension in many cases. I have only seen a couple of movies in a theater in the last decade, and my attendance is not going back up anytime soon.
They have other ideas. They just don't believe those ideas are as profitable as rehashing existing franchises. And they may be right.
They ran out of idea's long ago.
No risk, No gain.
This is clearly about financing and risks. Whomever is fronting the money wants a good return, not a great return, and obviously not a sucky return on their investment.
Sad Times.
And yet my Foundation screenplay still hasn't been given the shot it deserves!
There are a large number of books that they can use as a base for movies.
The reason is not that they are out of ideas, the reason is that they are lazy and just re-use what did work one more time.
How many fan-made episodes of Star Trek: TOS have been produced in the last 20 years or so?
How many original productions?
How many adaptations of classic sci-fi stories, film or TV that hasn't been touched since the 1950s or even earlier? There is a lot out there, still relevant and entertaining, that could be successfully revived.
The geek doesn't have much cause for complaint if his amateur productions follow the same well-worn path of the big-budget studios.
I think the problem is that there isn't an asshole shortage in Hollywood.
"That's the problem with Hollywood. Everyone has two pricks and three assholes. It's the genitalia hall of plenty."
- The Larry Sanders Show
they're cowardly. Making movies is hard work. Reselling last gens hits is a safer bet. Probably 80% of the /. crowd will get suckered into seeing it.
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Hollywood is so busy gazing into its own navel, they don't even want ideas from outside. Across the world, tons of literary content never before in English have been translated and published, and a lot of these books are jammed with ideas and approaches and concepts never seen or used by Hollywood. Fresh, new material ripe for licensing and/or theft.
But Hollywood doesn't want ANY of it! Because Hollywood is always busy trying to remake the last thing that was a hit, not trying to make new things.
Alien Covenant is at least 50% a remake of the first movie and Scott is not only proud of this, he wants to make (or remake) a ton more movies it the same series, probably all of them retellings of an existing story.
Spiderman, Batman, and Superman have all been rebooted multiple times despite the fact that everyone pretty much knows the origins for these characters. Hell, the fact that people already know is considered a PLUS, not a negative. Remake it again. Stupid moviegoers will happily buy the goddamn tickets anyway.
That's the other half of the problem: Hollywood keeps remaking bullshit but the motherfucking public rewards this by spending billions on tickets and DVDs and BDs and rentals and happily spend spend spend every damn time they remake this shit.
Geeks and nerds are the worst. You lot go to every single super hero movie to support the genre or whatever, but your devoted movie dollars go to reward completely crap and studios who don't even try, and you convince yourselves these movies are good. And you go again!
No wonder Hollywood keeps making this crap. They have no reason to make the next Arrival or take any of a dozen excellent contemporary Chinese fiction works and make a movie from that. And then they make crap like Great Wall, which flops because it is crap, and that right there will reinforce Hollywood's idea that they should just stay insular.
Sig for hire.
Too many people reacting to incorrect information (that it's a straight up reboot).
The point about remakes is true in general though. Hollywood has to keep turning out new shit to keep that oversized industry going. If you ever live outside the US, you'll find the movie industries, and entertainment industries in general, in other countries are usually much smaller. We're oversaturated with this sort of mindless, ephemeral entertainment and the massive companies at the top of it all push it on countries all over the world (more $). I think we'd all benefit from a much smaller Hollywood, aside from those that work in that industry, that released fewer, but more memorable, films.
To rub things in there wasn't much actually original in "The Matrix". While that isn't such a problem with a one-off thing since "good artists steal" and it put a of lot different stuff together in one place it gets a bit much when a derivative product gets digested and regurgitated again.
Even the green letters scrolling down the screen was taken from an anime called "Sumeba Miyako no Cosmos-s Suttoko Taisen Dokkoidaa", which was itself very much a derivative product (superhero comedy), so it probably came from somewhere before that.
I'd rather like to see a faithful adoption of the original story on which The Matrix is loosely based upon,
Simulacron-3 (1964) by Daniel F. Galouye.
There are a large number of books that they can use as a base for movies.
The reason is not that they are out of ideas, the reason is that they are lazy and just re-use what did work one more time.
Eh, being risk-averse is not lazy. The profits from these big blockbuster projects are fairly predictable.
Mass audiences prefer content that they are already familiar with. They like songs that sounds like songs they already like. They like stories and movies with plots they're already familiar with. People take comfort in being able to predict what's going to happen because they've seen something familiar. We don't like to be challenged with the new and unexpected, unless we feel really comfortable and safe and confident -- which most people don't.
I'd say it's a fair amount of work to meet people's existing expectations using established formulas and pacing, rather than going all creative and taking risks of pushing the envelope too far. Not the kind of safety net everyone appreciates, but whatever, it's just business.
I believe this will not be a total re-make but a story based in the matrix universe...
"And TV, for its part, is a dystopian wasteland of bland prequels to famous action movies. Hollywood relying on tentpole franchises, instead of taking risks on original ideas"
What? I'm not sure what TV your watching or have been watching for the last 20 years but some of the best original TV to ever exist has been produced in that time period. West World, Billions, Game of Thrones, The Walking Dead, Homeland, Better Call Saul, Breaking Bad, Mad Men, Rescue Me, The Shield, The Soprano's, Deadwood, Dexter, Lost and the list goes on and on and on. Sorry, fuck you, but TV in the the last twenty years has long since been better than cinema. If you're so fucking clueless that you've missed the golden age of TV on non-network television then that's on you but not on the rest of us with a brain.
Fuck off!!!!
Interesting. But at least the start of the script must have been substantially rewritten. The boot camp stuff was definitely based on the book.
"at least so soon after originally being made."
*cough*spiderman*cough*
"My name is John and I'm a generic white guy who fights terrorists. This is my partner Lady McBoobs. She's only here for a shower scene or to become a damsel in distress I don't know she's not important to the plot and it would be the same movie if I shot her in the first act. EXPLOSIONS. Also the government is in on the entire thing."
I'm probably going to get modded to the earths core for this, but I actually like Matrix Reloaded. I think I've even watched some scenes more than Matrix.
I think this has a few reasons:
1) Just like Matrix, but more of it. ... Hell yes. I don't see this as a downside.
2) Garage fight and Highway chase. I seriously don't have to elaborate on this, do I? The garage fight is just about one of the best fight scenes in movie history, ripped straight from some over-the-top Shadowrun Campaign, with magic and all. Watch it once a year or so. The highway speaks for itself. Epic and right up there with Ben Hurs race.
3) The twins. Every shot an epic. Every line a poem. Fucking brilliant, thats what. "We are getting aggrevated ..." LOL. Every time.
4) Witty onlineliners and mini-dialogues in abundance, one better than the next. No need for introduction or exposure or introduction anymore, just off-the-bat all out self-referencing verbal slapstick at its best. Balls of fun.
5) Trinitys "That's a neat trick." in German dubbing. I switch to German for this scene. Much better than the way she says it in the English original.
6) The Merovingian (spelling?). Well done. Unsympathetic on so many levels its almost transcendant. Good part, well played. ... This goes for just about every siderole. ... I could go on, but the bottom line is that #2 is in some ways better than the generic hero journey of Matrix. With that part out of the way and the huge success they were free to go crazy. They did and I like it.
My 2 Eurocents.
That Dark Elf has enough personality and badassery to have 10+ movies to himself. If done right these movies could be up there with the best of the best!
I tend to rant.
its free, just change the names
Liberty freedom are no1, not dicks in suits.
ROCKET ROBIN HOOD ALREADY!
Star Wars was nor re imagined, it was continued.
Any Studio that tries to remake Ferris Buellers Day Off should be burned to the ground, the ground salted, asphalted over, buried, and turned into a cattle feed lot so that the cow dung smell can hide the stench of those who attempt such an abomination. The original is perfect. Sacred.
The Matrix will join other famous film properties -- Star Wars, Godzilla, Planet of the Apes, and Terminator among them -- receiving a recent franchise reboot or "reimagining."
Star Wars and terminator were not reboots... they were prequel/sequels
The remake is guaranteed to make money. Knowing that the remake is going to make money, it can budget for big stars, etc. to further increase the boxoffice.
All-new movies are a crapshoot at best, where breaking even or making very modest money is a "very good" outcome. Sure, a few movies make great money, but they're outliers.
Why take an unnecessary gamble, seeing that studios are businesses organized to make $ -- not great movies.
I can think of a couple of sequels, or movies in a series, that I liked just as much or maybe more than previous movies.
Toy Story 3 is my favorite in that series.
Logan is my favorite of the X-Men franchise.
I think that these two did need the previous movies to give them the full context though.
Batman Begins dwarfs all previous attempts to tell that story, and The Dark Knight was fantastic.
Rise of and Dawn of the Planet of the Apes were great and much less corny than the original, although they were prequels.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The remake of Point Break isn't any worse than the original. They're both comfortable middle ranking mundane action films.
If you really want 'screw it up' try The Italian Job, or the ultimate fucked up remake, 'Get Carter'.
It's the pirates who are robbing Hollywood of profits.
There is a reason the Matrix franchise made WB 1.6 Billion. It was a really good movie trilogy. Perhaps among the best. People complained about Keanu Reeves, but he was perfect for the part of Neo. People complained about the sequels, but they tied the story together really well. People always complain. It costs nothing to carp. It makes them feel like they have something important to say. But that's like, just their opinion, man... Name me any trilogy that did not have scorn heaped upon it by the Tittering Scofferatti. Star Wars? Every episode was scorned mercilessly. Alien? Should have stopped after Aliens. LOTR? You gotta be kidding me. Harry Potter? They only stopped because the kids grew up too fast. My point is simply, you can't please all the people all the time. Movies are, at their core, artful story telling. You either connect or you don't. No one has the right to pass judgment on them on behalf of anyone else.
I always thought that "Darwin's Radio" might be a good movie if done right (well, so much for that idea). Or perhaps in this Netflix/Amazon original content age, a mini series.
As long a things go boom in a satisfying way, crowds will flock to see a movie.
So why work hard to develop new frameworks for said explosions?
I'd like to see a remake of all three movies in anime form, like an extended Animatrix.
Be a lot cheaper, too.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"Realtime Interrupt is a 1995 science fiction novel by James P. Hogan set in a near-future Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. It tells the story of Joe Corrigan, who awakens in a Pittsburgh hospital without memory. As director of the supersecret Oz Project, he had worked on a virtual reality software project, and as he slowly recalls his past, he sets out on a quest to pick up the pieces of his past life. He discovers that the virtual reality is still going on [(spoiler) and he is trapped in it for reasons of corporate greed]."
Preceeded by his "Entoverse" in 1991:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
"(spoilers) The Jevlenese move JEVEX [a huge supercomputer] to the planet of Uttan so that their researchers can increase its power without the knowledge of the Thuriens. Unknown to both parties, a pocket universe forms within JEVEX, the Entoverse. Some of its sapient inhabitants ("Ents") who go by the title of ayatollahs devise the ability to pass over to the original universe by taking over the minds of the Jevlenese [when they use headsets to work or play in virtual reality]. The Thuriens begin to trust the Jevlenese and contract them with the task of observing human civilization. Still driven by hatred of their old rivals, the Jevlenese set about hindering human progress."
But another comment mentions Simulacron-3 (1964).
I had also read a non-virtual-reality similar story (the simulated people were tiny robots) probably from the 1960s or 1970s perhaps. That world was built to test advertising, and it always was the same day and the "people" who were originally all killed by some nearby chemical plant disaster did not know they were now simulated.
A 21st century issue: the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity.
Seriously, when Metallica's latest album came out and I heard this song, the first thing I thought was that there needed to be another Matrix movie, and that this song needed to play when the credits rolled.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m46Z0-HXySo
I thought "I, Robot" had more elements from "Caves of Steel" than the book "I, Robot."
Enough to make me wish they had just filmed "Caves of Steel" instead, anyway!
All "reboots", "reimaginings" and "remakes" are crap. Unless proven otherwise.
The rule is nearly foolproof; the average remake is far inferior to the original. It holds true so strongly that it is much easier to list the exceptions to the rule, as that makes the list much shorter.
Reboots Superior To The Original:
Battlestar Galactica ...and that's about it? Do note though, that I'm limiting my evaluation to the genres I prefer.
I'm betting the machines will turn out to be Trump, Neo will be a black handicapped transgender, and they will once again ruin a perfectly good thing by politicizing it. It will play well in the blue bubble echo chamber of Hollywierd and flop miserably everywhere else.
Murphy was an optimist
Reminded me of a bit of Trivia about Sherlock Holmes:
http://www.guinnessworldrecord...
Also apparently there are 272 films about Dracula. Blah Blah Blah! :)
I recently finished watching the Shannara Chronicles on MTV. What's more surprising is apparently season two is coming this summer...