Long Live the '90s

Scott Hardie | July 11, 2015
Now that Jurassic World has been an enormous hit, and Independence Day is coming back, I have heard it said that studios are going to make lots of sequels and remakes of '90s movies, because the '90s are suddenly hot right now. Terminator Genisys has not done so well, and that might finally stem the tide of followups to T2 specifically, but I don't expect the overall '90s trend to cool for at least a few more years.

What '90s movies do you expect to see get the sequel/remake treatment, and which ones would you like to see?

Aaron Shurtleff | July 11, 2015
Not to highjack this, since my comment is not relative to this conversation (except in the most tangental of ways), but we already have a movie based on the Battleship game (which I haven't seen, but I've heard Rihanna is in it...) and, according to a movie poster I saw as I passed by a theatre yesterday, soon one based on Jem and the Holograms.

...is there anything that we can't expect now?

Back to topic, I'm torn. I honestly don't really enjoy remakes that much. They always get compared to the original in my mind, and honestly, they mostly don't measure up to that nostalgia. Of course, then there's the complication of the bell curve, if you will. If I absolutely hated a movie, I won't see a remake, because why would I want to? But, if I really loved a movie, why even see a remake, when it has almost no chance of living up to the original. It would have to pretty much be in that sad mediocre territory for me to even want to give it a chance. Or I would have had to never have seen the original, but then it's just a movie.

In fact, on thinking of it, I think seeing remakes makes me more interested in seeing the originals. I'm no fan of Sinatra, but I would like to see the original Oceans 11. And Manchurian Candidate is another where I want to see the original, having only seen the remake...

Scott Hardie | July 22, 2015
It's insane. They'll make movies about anything. The success of The Lego Movie has inspired development for movies about Play-Doh, Rubik's Cube, Playmobil, Hungry Hungry Hippos, Stretch Armstrong, View-Master, and Magic 8-Ball, among plenty of others.

The problem with remakes, of course, is that Hollywood only remakes good movies that don't need remakes. Very rarely are remakes better than the originals. It's tempting to call them universally disappointing, except that people tend not to go in with high hopes, or at least, they shouldn't.

Sequels to long-dormant franchises, especially those with some of the major creative talent (directors, writers, actors, etc) from the original, have at least some chance of turning out well. If a 90s movie has to be sequelized, I loved The Matrix and would be interested to see another sequel, especially if it was extra fun to make up for the dour 2003 sequels.

Erik Bates | August 6, 2015
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Scott Hardie | August 6, 2015
I should see the original. :-(

<-- out of touch

Scott Hardie | August 7, 2015
Another Fight Club movie seems likelier and likelier, given that even the once-relucatant Chuck Palahniuk has caught sequelitis.

To add to the list of toys getting their own movies, we can now add Pez dispensers.

Samir Mehta | August 7, 2015
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Scott Hardie | January 13, 2016
Another example of how-can-they-make-a-movie-out-of-this: Emoji.