Top 10 Movie Franchises That Should Be Rebooted – Or: I’ve Got The Blues And The Only Cure Is More Tremors!

No.5 Blade

Contrary to popular belief, the modern wave of comic-book-inspired movies did not start with Bryan Singer’s X-Men, but rather with Wesley Snipes’ vampire hunter.

The original Blade proved comic book movies could be creative, entertaining and profitable. Guillermo Del Toro’s sequel grossed even more money. Then some brain-dead mutant in upper management thought it would be a good idea to insert Ryan Reynolds and a PG-13 rating into a franchise noted for its gore, rampant violence, vulgar language, and hardcore ass-kickery. To no one’s great surprise, the third Blade movie flopped harder than Mel Gibson at a Bar Mitzvah, sundering any and all hope for a long-running franchise.

*rolls dice* “Ryan Reynolds hits you with a critical strike. Your franchise takes 1,000pts of damage.”

With Reynolds off ruining another franchise before it even gets off the ground (Green Lantern) and Snipes currently enjoying the hospitality of this nation’s finest correctional institutions, there’s already talk of starting the Blade saga over with a new lead. Thus far in the running is Thor’s Idris Elba who easily gets my vote. My only condition? For the love of God, make sure you make an R-rated movie, with all the arterial spray that entails. And no fucking sparkly vampires!

No.4 Robocop

The original Robocop is very much a product of the ’80s. It’s a movie filled to the brim with witty societal jabs, pokes at the consumer culture of the decade, shots at big corporations and topped off with completely outrageous violence, like any good 1980s action flick. It’s the easiest movie on this list to move forward in time. Simply replace the product-obsessed culture of the ’80s with… the…uh… Apple fanboys of today? Then take away the insinuations that big business secretly controls… uh… OK, maybe Robo could take on the companies responsible for the sub-prime mortgage scandal? Sigh. Let’s just get original director Paul Verhoeven back for the reboot.

Biting societal satire has always been his thing; let him work his magic on a new Robocop for a new century. Instead of a young cop getting a pair of metal underpants, let’s have a grizzled, angry, law-breaking veteran cop get mowed down in the line of duty. I want somebody less noble than Peter Weller’s Alex Murphy playing Robo, somebody who’s been there, done that, and who is mad as hell and not taking any more of society’s crap. Robocop as a tragedy would totally work. Let’s have an angry robotic cop cleaning up the streets in his own unique way only to be hunted down and punished by a society unwilling to let go of its iPhones.

Also, a new, cutting-edge CGI ED-209, complete with Apple logo on its twin gatling guns would kick an ungodly amount of ass. Providing, of course, it doesn’t suffer any further embarrassing, homicidal glitches.

Caption: i-ED209. Comes with wi-fi, GPS, bad attitude, and none of those pansy three laws of robotics

No.3 Jaws

When you’re responsible for launching the summer movie blockbuster phenomenon, there’s nowhere to go but down. Here is a franchise that started off as one of those rare horror movies capable of earning accolades, multi-generational fans, and everlasting fame. Unfortunately, Jaws has been quoted, parodied and generally accepted as part of pop-culture zeitgeist for so many decades that a lot of its appeal has become marginalized. It’s still a superb movie, but it’s no longer considered sacrilegious to mess with this classic. Also, two-thirds of the cast that hunted the infamous shark is dead.

Richard Dreyfuss still manages to elude Yell! Magazine’s top assassins.

The franchise was run into the seabed by a sequel (Another great white? Ludicrous!), a 3-D third installment (A great white inside Sea World? Preposterous!), and a fourth chapter featuring a revenge-bent shark capable of both hatred and roaring without the use of lungs.

Yeah, that was my reaction too.

I suggest getting a young but hungry filmmaker capable of bringing respectability back to the undersea critter genre. And for the love of Spielberg, play it straight! Think less Shark Night 3D and more The Reef since a large part of the original Jaws’ appeal was its psychological underpinnings.

No.2 Night of the Living Dead

The “…Of The Living Dead” franchise could use a fresh coat of paint. Some would argue that series creator George Romero as been doing good work with his latest trio of Dead flicks (Land, Diary and Survival), but purists know that the original trilogy will never be surpassed. Nostalgia is big in Hollywood nowadays, so why not reboot the franchise by going back to the beginning with a movie set in the 1960s. The Living Dead movies have always taken potshots at society, so why not go back to a time when racial tensions were high, Vietnam was gearing up and people in general were a lot more in the dark about the whole zombie thing. Plus, hippy zombies! (Is that redundant? Both smell bad, have the munchies something fierce and shamble awkwardly.)

“Groovy, man, I’m feeling for eating some brains after this.” Puff, puff…

Also, let’s ditch the small band of survivors storyline and finally show the worldwide zombie pandemic in its full glory. I want to see zombies breaking into the White House. I want major chaos and destruction breaking out in the streets. I want reports of undead celebrities running after innocent civilians on the television.

See? Totally redundant!

No.1 Mad Max

Click image to see full-size (1024×768)

Coincidentally enough, this one’s actually already in the reboot stages. Tom Hardy, of Inception fame and playing the villainous Bane in the upcoming Batman: The Dark Knight Rises, has been chosen to replace Mel Gibson’s legendary Max Rockatansky. Odds are, the movie makers are going to stick pretty close to the original’s revenge-driven storyline. But I have a suggestion! Since the price and growing scarcity of gas was a major plot point in Road Warrior, why not have the current worldwide oil crisis figure prominently in the reboot? We could have Max enforcing strict gas control laws on the dangerous roads of Australia. Take the gas convoy attack of Road Warrior and make that a daily occurrence, with cops and modern day oil pirates fighting it out on the highways for control of a diminishing resource.

No sir, officer. The machine guns, grappling hooks, grenades, and other assorted weaponry are for recreational use only.

Pages: 1 2