Camilla Bell delivers crap to remake hungry audiences in When a Stranger Calls.
With the sweet, profitable start to 2006’s box office, it’s become increasingly clear that 2005’s box office wasn’t in decline because ticket prices were too high or because people prefer DVD, but because the movies were too good. 2006’s movie year has kicked off with massive, moneymaking successes for Hollywood, but they're making all that money from terrible movies. We’re not just talking mildly bad here, but absolutely atrocious, craptacular filmmaking. It’s clear that what audiences want is not creativity or quality, but loathsome, critically panned, toothless, PG-13 remakes of memorable thrillers like When a Stranger Calls. So of course Hollywood is going to make more of them. A lot more of them.
One of the next up for a do-over is a remake of the 1987 thriller The Hidden. Cinescape says the new version is being written by a couple of guys named Rock Shank Jr. and Mark Jonathan Stanley. Their version is being renamed The Seed. Their past writing credits include… well… nothing. But you’ve got to start somewhere, why not on a B-level horror movie?
Remember the Edgar suit from Men in Black? The original was a lot like that, except with a lot less comedy and starring Kyle MacLachlan. It’s the story of an Alien on the run in America, slaughtering people for kicks, and then hiding itself inside the bodies of its victims. From what I gather the original was mostly famous for its body count. Expect that to change if they want to squeeze the redo into a PG-13 so they can make money off your thirteen-year-old daughters the way When a Stranger Calls did this past weekend.
