In this era of diversity casting, Hollywood has gone overboard, rebooting familiar TV series, and, sometimes, movies, with African-American casts. Sometimes, it works. Sometimes, it doesn't.
On television, the trend has been to revive game shows with African-American hosts, a topic we've discussed before. The latest in this trend is ABC bringing back home Supermarket Sweep for primetime consumption, with Leslie Jones (ex-Saturday Night Live) serving as MC. The series returns to ABC after more than 50 years away, and the last incarnation went through two cable networks (Ion & Lifetime), with David Ruprecht as host.
But for every game that succeeds with this trend (i.e. Steve Harvey on Family Feud), there's a few that fall by the wayside.
Primetime drama has had an even more checkered record with revivals.
In 2005, someone at Universal thought it might be cool to turn Kojak into an African-American, and handed Ving Rhames Telly Savalas' old box of lollipops. The reboot on USA Network lasted 1 season. Eight years later, having learned nothing from the failures of not only Kojak, but also revivals of Night Stalker, Bionic Woman, & Knight Rider in the interim, Universal decided to try again, this time putting Blair Underwood (ex-L. A. Law) into Raymond Burr's wheelchair as Ironside, and relocated the series from San Francisco to New York. Didn't even make it to Christmas.
Around the same time the Kojak reboot was in production, some genius thought repackaging Jackie Gleason's seminal The Honeymooners with an inner-city beat would work as a feature film. Nope. Having Cedric The Entertainer (currently in The Neighborhood) and Mike Epps as Ralph Kramden & Ed Norton didn't translate at the box office.
And that brings us to news of a remake of John Hughes' 1987 comedy, "Planes, Trains, & Automobiles", with Will Smith and the super-busy Kevin Hart in the roles originated by Steve Martin and the late John Candy. If you've never seen the original, the trailer should motivate you to rent the DVD:
Due to arrive next year, I believe, the new "Planes" is meant to capitalize on the box office appeal of its leads. The final verdict, of course, rests not so much with critics, but with the ticket buying consumers. Hollywood in the 21st century is so obsessed with pre-sold product, it's getting insane.
Eventually, the gold mine of familiar properties will bottom out. Hollywood needs new ideas, but is servicing a generation or two of movie-goers that aren't willing to try something new. That needs to change.
2 comments:
I'm with you. I'm all for inclusion, representation and all that good stuff, but Hollywood really needs to chill with all these remakes, reboots and revamps. Studios have gotten so lazy that they'd rather ride the nostalgia train than work on original ideas that could become mainstream or cult classics in their own right 10, 15, or 20 years down the line. And just making the characters black doesn't make it a new idea.
"And just making the characters black doesn't make it a new idea."
Exactly. Universal actually considered doing the same thing with Murder, She Wrote, with Octavia Spencer in the lead, but it didn't go past the talking stage.
I think studios today, because they're part of bigger conglomerates (i.e. Disney, Universal, WB), are combing the vaults much more than listening to pitches for original ideas. Christopher Nolan's latest, Tenet, is the exception, rather than the rule.
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