Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/03/26/remake-of-teen-witch-classic.html
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Is nothing sacred? I axe you…
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I’m told the original is a “chick flick” but I enjoyed it.
Of course maybe I just had a huge crush on Fairuza Balk. I think she cast a spell on me or something.
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Different sides of a similar genre; neither of which were very faithful to the actual tenets of witchcraft or magick.
(I never got into Buffy or Charmed, despite my minor interest in occult lore.)
I’m solely talking about the quality of the acting; Fairuza owned that role and really seemed like a psychopath.
She was very compelling.
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I really enjoyed Fairuza Balk in the Craft; especially as the film was less scary than the previous thing I’d seen her in…
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I am kinda sick of Hollywood doing this all the time. I’m not necessarily opposed to remakes if they do something interesting with it (Scorsese’s “Cape Fear” added a lot of subtlety to the original characters and plot), but there are so many stories out there to tell, and if you’re not improving on the original then let it be.
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I was thinking when I read it…Just find a way to have Fairuza play some part in the new one. Just somewhere…because she stole the show in that film.
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I don’t even know how this movie would work in a modern setting. It was so of its time and place.
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She is literally the one part of that movie I remember.
I just had to Google the cast to recollect who else was in it. I had totally forgotten Neve Campbell was in it, even though she was the bigger name.
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I think that’s what makes a remake interesting to me. The original is 90s almost to the point of being inaccessible to anyone born after 1985. And yet there is a core of a film that could easily be modernized or made timeless. I wouldn’t be surprised if this remake only held on to the name and the most basic plot concept, which would probably be for the best.
When starting at a new school, Hannah befriends Tabby, Lourdes, and Frankie
The “student at a new school” demographic seems to be greatly over-represented in Hollywood films.
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I often feel that way, especially when I read about interesting-sounding original scripts that can’t get made. But then I look at lists of films that are remakes and it helps put things in perspective. The lists are very, very long and go back to day 1 of Hollywood. It’s just how the movie business has always worked, and there are plenty of highly beloved films that were technically remakes (but which are never talked about as such). Plus, this often allows original scripts to sneak in, cloaked in a name that gives them more commercial appeal. (But they may have literally nothing to do with the material they’re supposedly a remake or adaptation of, or are so different they’re their own thing entirely.) Plus, with copyright law enforcement as weird as it has become, often the only way to make a film with a similar theme to an older movie is to do it as a remake.
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At the top level, remakes and franchise films are in fact taking all the air out of room. Which is to say, If you look at the top grossing films of the year, over time fewer of them are not remakes and sequels. Non-franchise films still get made, of course, but they are increasingly relegated to lower-tier art house releases.
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Obligatory reminiscence GIF
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Perhaps it would be more efficient to simply make a post titled “Remake/Sequel of Everything is Underway” and then just update the list as each thing inevitably get added. You could add asterisks next to items that have multiple remakes/sequels.
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Of course that list is more about the increased reliance on blockbuster films as top grossing movies more than anything else. (And even so: the list isn’t so different for the '90s and '00s as more recent years - it’s just an increased incidence of there only being one - or none - original film as a top grosser in a given year, not that it’s a new phenomenon. The '90s were very much the era of indie movies, and indie movies given the marketing to be surprise hits, so I’d really have expected more of them on the list. Yet it turns out there were only a couple years where that was really the case.) Also those mid- and lower-tier movies are increasingly ending up bypassing theaters altogether, too, thanks to big high-def screens at home and movie streaming. (So they don’t even have a chance to be surprise hits.)
Still, the cumulative effect of all those changes in the movie business has created some real shock. I know someone who has a free movie pass to a local independent theater chain that shows everything from foreign indie movies to blockbusters; she went from seeing almost every movie released there to seeing almost nothing now, as bombastic superhero movies (based on comic books or not - Fast and Furious, etc. counts here) have no appeal to her. It’s at the point where there really isn’t much else.
But the problem isn’t Hollywood’s focus on remakes - that’s more a symptom of the real problem. What shows up in theaters are blockbusters for the international market and sequels/franchise movies are the financially safest way to do that.
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This is the one pro-remake argument that I’ve never understood. I can watch films from multiple decades and appreciate the things that are different from the era in which I grew up. They sometimes give me greater insight into things that were common or occurred long before I was born.
What is unique about people born after 1985 that they cannot do the same thing?
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