It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?
So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.
And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.
There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.
I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.
So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.
But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”
My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher
“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.
~ David Simon
No, thank you. If John Hughes was going to come out of his cocoon, I’d much rather he produce original screenplays.
Leave those movies alone. They were done right the first time. Though I could see something like Weird Science working as a remake.
But speaking of real remakes, I just rewatched the original Revenge of the Nerds. And damned if it is pretty much perfect for what it is. Great cast. Lots of Kubrick references. Uses stereotypes to comment on stereotyping. Lots of boobs. Oh…and Curtis Armstrong should’ve won an Oscar for Booger.
Didn’t someone already announce plans to remake Adventures in Babysitting? Seriously.
I don’t remember the Kubrick references. Really? I might have to go digging through my basement for my VHS copy.
Yes, Disney is developing an Adventures in Babysitting remake for Raven-Symone, though I wouldn’t be surprised to see the lead change to Vanessa Anne Hudgens or Ashley Tisdale as part of their package deal for “High School Musical 3.”
Stop skull fucking the withered, battered corpse of my childhood.
Not a big fan of John Hughes, but I don’t think Apatow et al would do remakes.
If Hughes had any decency he’d destroy all copies of his dreck, not remake it.
Apatow remaking timeless flicks? Has Apatow Productions produced one TIMELESS film? One? When Apatow and Company get to a level where they can make a film that still plays in 20 years and has kids who were babies when those movies were released… want to watch them. Maybe then Judd and Co. can remake the Hughes films with Apatow’s daughters staring in the Sheddy and Ringwald roles. Until then Miami Heat… uh… no.
Perhaps Apatow already has made a timeless flick, but we won’t know for a while how well they hold up. I will say that 40 Year Old Virgin, two years later, is still hilarious.
I don’t know what to say about this remake fever. I read they’re going to remake Straw Dogs and Sunset Boulevard. Part of me thinks that anybody who would remake those films should be shot. But another part of me feels like, whatever, they do it on Broadway all the time, producing revivals and such so why not movies too? But still, remaking Sunset Boulevard is blasphemy. Remaking a John Hughes movie is just annoying.
Hughes should remake Weird Science.
It’s the simplest, most exploitable idea among the films and probably the least beloved.
It would be heresy to remake Breakfast Club, Pretty in Pink, Sixteen Candles, Ferris Bueller, or Some Kind of Wonderful.
If Hughes wants to sell out his old films (like Wes Craven is doing), he should just remake Home Alone.
Yeah, um, how about not. Enough with remakes. Period.
The Hughes teen movies, while easily the best things he’s done, are overrated. I don’t care whether Superbad will be popular or beloved in twenty years; it’s a better, funnier movie than anything Hughes ever made. Ditto Cameron Crowe’s Say Anything. There are certainly lots of nice moments in the better Hughes teen pictures, but all of them have some degree of Hollywood cheesiness, like all of those movies where the girl finds happiness with some older guy who “gets” her and the nerd is happy to go home friendless. Hey, they’re perfectly enjoyable fantasies with dashes of grit to make you think they’re realistic, but the romantic relationships in his films rarely feel earned to me.
NO! Why in your right mind would you promote remakes?
having just seen ‘3:10 to yuma’, i have a new faith in remakes….that said, i’ve recently rewatched ‘whatever happened to baby jane?’ w/the redgrave sisters and am now convinced it should be remade w/the olsen twins…..
Scooterezz: Don’t give them any ideas.
im with the ‘why remake?’ crowd.
aren’t there enough turgid pieces of shit floating in the bowl already?
Superbad better than anything Hughes ever made? Sure… that’s a bit myopic. Especially in light of your reasons about the romantic relationships in Superbad. Please: Point out to me how “real” those relationships Seth and Evan find themselves in at the end of the movie. If those are real, then I would rather have SOME KIND OF WONDERFUL. Hell, I would rather have CAREER OPPORTUNITIES, but please continue with your myopic argument Jesse. It makes me want to fight… but not. I do have your back on Say Anything.
That aside; REMAKES HAVE ALWAYS HAPPENED. Please go rent the recent The Maltese Falcon DVD and notice it has the ORIGINAL VERSION on the DVD as well as the better known remake. Remakes happen. They are going to happen until the BIZ finds a different business model. Once that happens; a few more original thoughts will start popping out there, that will be remade in the 2070s. It’s an endless cycle because a good story can always be retold. No matter how much we get attached to them.
Remakes have always happened, but I think it’s pretty clear there are more now than there ever have been in the history of movies.
ok….i laughed……(and i’ll prob steal it)..
Jeff; uh no.
Sunset Boulevard being remade?? What’s next? The Godfather? Citizen Kane? Are we that out of idea? The forthcoming ‘re-imagining’ of Halloween seems to suggest so.
I’m ok with some remakes, but please, keep your hands off the classics.
No more remakes, no more DVD re-releases (you hearin’ me, “Blade Runner”?), no more mention of Judd Apatow and Seth Rogen for at least six months. I like their work, but I’m sick of seeing their names at this point. If some people are hellbent on worshipping them, please go all the way – like the folks who won’t use the word “God”.
IO, since Superbad isn’t really a romantic comedy, it doesn’t need the guys to have stronger relationships with those girls (though I would argue that those less developed relationships are more realistic than anything Molly Ringwald finds herself in at the end of any Hughes movie, and even the tentative Superbad “romances” feel more earned to me). The central relationship is really between the two guys, and that, to me, works better than the romantic relationships in the Hughes movies.
This isn’t a case of me being blinded by a love of Superbad — I just don’t think that much of the Hughes pictures.
Would not be too fond of remakes of these Hughes classics, especially Planes, Trains, and Automobiles which is in my Top 20 of all time. (Yeah Seriously, I luv this movie)
I would however lover to see characters from Breaksfast Club, Weird Science, Ferris Beuller 20 years later, like Before/After Sunrise.
Maybe we could have Ferris Beuller: Skipping Work, Ferris Bueller forgets his teenage tryst and became a work horse and on a visit from Cameron, who is now the protaganyst, has to rediscover himself with a day off from work. would be a nice commentary on where we are as a society.
Breakfast Club: Reunion. The dysfunctional gang is back together and get locked in the gym again, possibly by one of their kids, or the kid of the former principal, so that they can work out some issues, like how they are now treating their own kids.
Weird Science: Illegal Download. The only one I think should have a new cast with cameos by the original stars. Teens develop a new search engine that gives life to inanimate objects and bring famous video game vixens to life, a la lara croft and others. (sorry don’t know their names) They receive the ire of their parents and the FBI, now headed by Anthony Michael Hall and with a special guest cameo by Robert Downey Jr. A kind of Superbad meets the Superhighway. Just a thought.
But please leave my Planes, Trains, Automobiles alone.
Ugh. Please don’t give anybody the idea of remaking The Breakfast Club, which I place in my top five of all time. Nor do I care to see remakes of Sixteen Candles, Pretty in Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful or Ferris Beuller. I recently viewed The Breakfast Club for some of my friends who had never seen it and they fell in love with it too.
IOIOI: any stats to back up that claim? You name 1 movie remade in 1941; The remakes are in the double digits this year.
all this remake talk is making me queasy.
creatively bankrupt. that’s all it is.
For the record, my hatred of SUPERBAD is not apparent. It’s very real.
Most John Hughes movies are so lousy that it seems inconceivable that remakes could be any worse, but I’d rather not find out.
current mood: extra grumpy
Jeff; go and use the IMDB. The 30s to the beginning of the 60s were ripe with remake madness. Who cares about all of these remakes? Most of them, recently, have been horrour fils. A genre that has been about REMAKES for decades. So people are remaking movies. Again: There’s always another way to tell a good story. No matter how the results on that retelling may vary from the original telling of the story. That aside; Cadavra… bladiblah blah blah.
Cad would actually be the great source in here on cycles of remakes.
And do suspenders go with that extra grumpy?
There is some truth to the Hughes/Apatow thing, but I don’t know how far it would go.
I remember reading an interview with Hughes that took place years ago and the reporter asked him why he thought he had so much success. He answered that unlike the Porky’s or Fast Times movies that were big at the time, he tapped into something teens could relate to more, a latent conservatism.
He went on to explain that not all teen were on the make; not all teens craved sex 24/7 and most of them were afraid of it. They were not as raunchy as films presented. They were insecure and had complex emotions and many saw sex as something more complex than it was depicted as. He talked up, not down to kids. Even a film like Fast Times has a real smutty/ugly feel when I watch it now varying between dealing with and cheaply exploiting teen sex.
That’s partly why I was lukewarm to Superbad; it assumes all teens want to do is get laid and always speak in the most graphic of language 24/7. That is just not true, which is why we are still talking about Hughes, 2 decades after his peak, and we will probably not talk about Superbad in 20 years.
Can we call a moratorium on the “it will/won’t be talked about in 20 years” argument? Unless we have a precog in our midst, it’s kind of a pointless thing to use as ammo in a discussion. Twenty years from now we could all be atomic mutants and then we’ll be talking about a lot of atomic mutant movies and how laughable they would all seem in retrospect if any of us had mouths anymore with which to laugh, okay?
Nicol: All of which might explain the “High School Musical” phenomenon, perhaps?
Joe,
Perhaps. The HSM phenom is huge and I have to say that when I rented the DVD of the original several months ago I was amazed at how entertained I was. And I think that’s just it. If films – always – showed teens as chaste or in the Andy Hardy type vein, that would be unrealistic.
But now, the Hughes films or the HSM type films are so rare in a world of Superbads and American Pies, that I think for many people, they stand out as more ‘truthful’ than the pure raunch films.
I don’t have that many memories of scoring in high school ( okay, none ) and I sure didn’t talk like the kids in Superbad or American Pie.
You know, if HSM2 really had opened theatrically this past weekend, I wonder how many break-ups it would have caused among high schol couples? Seriously: He wants to see Superbad, she wants to see HSM2… Or, of course, vice versa.
My brother-in-law is 23 and still talks like the kids in Superbad. I mean, exactly like them. I think a lot of people his age and younger do.
What DID happen to John Hughes? In the early ’90’s, he producing like three movies a year in the wake of Home Alone and then just stopped.
Producers DO take breaks, people forget that Simpson and Bruckheimer took a few years off after Days of Thunder and then came back with Big Willie in ’95. But this guy just never returned. Was he that broken up that Dennis the Menace underperformed?!
I think The Breakfast Club, while cliched, is his most special movie. Just the concept…..90 minutes of teenagers just TALKING, even in the Miramax indie heyday, they never did a film like that. To this day, I do not buy the romantic conclusion with Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald, but it’s easy to forgive with Simple Minds blaring over the credits.
People forget just how adept John Hughes was with music, especially in films like Sixteen Candles, where it’s wall-to-wall new wave, never drawing too much attention to itself or setting up punchlines like a Nora Ephron movie. Seriously, the guy rivaled Scorcese when it came to that.
Doubtful that you really could do an adequate job of remaking most of his ’80’s comedies – they are very much of their time, just like Saturday Night Fever or Easy Rider and the time period plays a big part of the story.
Before any one flys off the rails, I am NOT putting John Hughes up there in the pantheon with the great directors – he was just very effective at what he did and should be remembered for that. Just as John McTiernan will never be though of as a genius or “autueur,” but for a few years, he was a master of his genre – Die Hard, Red October, Predator.
The soundtrack to Sixteen Candles is one of my most treasured albums. INXS! The Smiths! OMD! Thompson Twins! Danny Hutton Hitters! Belouis Some! Jesse Johnson! and my favourite “Left of Centre” by Suzanne Vega and Joe Jackson.
Hughes’ films have a sort of innocence to them that was much like The 40-Year-Old Virgin. Hughes’ movies were made for teens and didn’t treat them like grade schoolers. The kids would love to get the girl (or the guy) but, realistically, they don’t and so on.