Scrooged came out in 1988 starring Bill Murray as Frank Cross in a modern retelling of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. So if you remake Scrooged, aren't you really just doing another remake of A Christmas Carol?
Also, just why?
Apparently Kevin Hart has teamed up with Paramount to remake Scrooged. Hart will produce and potentially star in the movie, which is looking for a writer for the script. So no script is written as of yet, according to THR, this is just an idea Paramount is interested in exploring along with Kevin Hart.
Why? Money, I would imagine. Or potential money, if it's a hit. Hollywood has been riding the remake money train for a while, flipping through the archives to find titles to remake for 21st Century audiences.
So far, reaction to the mere idea of a Scrooged remake is negative.
I guess the best way to stop anything from happening is with your wallet. Just don't buy a ticket when it comes out. Or, if enough people make it clear now that they won't buy a ticket, maybe the filmmakers will shelve the idea. I doubt it, though.
Even some Kevin Hart fans are making it known -- tagging the actor himself -- that they are not down for this:
To play devil's advocate for a minute, sometimes remakes and reboots do very well. See Disney's current streak of remakes, including Aladdin, with The Lion King on the way. There was backlash to the idea of another Jumanji movie and Kevin Hart rode the surprise success of Welcome to the Jungle all the way to another movie, which is coming out later this year.
Besides, if Paramount does make this Scrooged movie, it's more likely they will focus on winning over new audiences and families, rather than the same people who watched the movie in the '80s and turned it into a cult classic on video in the ensuing decades.
Scrooged only made $60.3 million at the box office after its November 1988 release. It wasn't exactly a massive hit, but it is a beloved Christmas movie today. I wonder if anyone out there can recall the reaction to the idea of Scrooged when it was announced, before it came out and long before it became a cult classic. That was before the internet, never mind social media, so we can't search back to see if people blasted the first Scrooged for the mere idea of its modern twist on A Christmas Carol.
For all we know, Kevin Hart's Scrooged remake will come out and be a huge new Christmas hit. Stranger things have happened after knee-jerk negative reactions. I'll try to keep an open mind if and when the movie comes out, but for now I reserve the right to stay in bah humbug mode.
