Does the world need another Police Academy movie? Unless you hate cinema and life in general, the answer is an emphatic “no”. Unfortunately, this hasn’t stopped Hollywood from forging ahead with a reboot to this risible 1980s “comedy” series starring the equally risible Steve Guttenberg. Here are five reboots currently in pre-production that we really wish didn’t exist.
[credit provider=”Warner Bros.” url=”http://www.warnerbros.com/”]
Police Academy
Despite spanning seven feature-length films and a TV series, we can’t think of a single joke from Police Academy that was even remotely funny. (If you remember laughing at Michael Winslow — AKA “the man of 10,000 noises” — you were probably under ten at the time. Same goes for Bobcat Goldthwait.) We’d hoped that the woeful box-office performance of Police Academy: Mission to Moscow has finally killed the franchise for good, but it’s looking increasingly likely that this crime against comedy will soon be back on patrol. Just shoot us now.
Indiana Jones
According to the Hollywood rumour mill, Disney is priming another installment of Indiana Jones which it recently acquired during the purchase of Lucasfilm. Depending on who you believe, the next movie will either be Indiana Jones 5 or a reboot starring a completely different actor (Bradley Cooper has been frequently mentioned as a likely candidate). We think both ideas are terrible. The fourth movie clearly proved that Harrison Ford is far too old for these shenanigans — watching him puff about in his 80s would just be embarrassing. On the other hand, placing somebody younger in the same iconic hat would just feel wrong. This is a franchise that should have stayed in the ’80s.
Ghostbusters
Ivan Reitman and Dan Aykroyd have been trying to get a new Ghostbusters movie off the ground for years, despite an almost complete lack of interest from original star Bill Murray. Now that Harold Ramis has passed away, it seems that a reboot is the only option left. We really wish they wouldn’t bother. The second movie already proved that it’s impossible to capture lightning in the same bottle twice — ushering in a new generation of paranormal investigators is unlikely to bring anything fresh to the table.
Goonies/Gremlins
When in doubt, raid the bloated corpse of an ’80s movie franchise. That seems to be the latest mantra from Hollywood, which is itching to produce followups to both The Goonies and Gremlins. In the case of The Goonies, original director Richard Donner is attached to the project and the original cast is also expected to return in some capacity (it’s not like any of them have much to do these days; including The Lord of The Ring‘s Sean Austin.) Other than receiving a much-needed pay cheque, we can’t imagine this being a good idea for anyone involved.
The Gremlins reboot sounds even worse — apparently, original director Joe Dante isn’t even in negotiations and you can bet most of the puppeteering will be replaced with souless CGI. This whole project needs to be avoided like a gremlin in water.
The Crow
More so than any other movie on this list, The Crow was very much a product of its time — the grunge-filled soundtrack, angst-ridden hero and relentlessly humorless tone all scream “early 90s”. We simply can’t see this one translating to modern audiences at all. Some things need to stay in the era that they were spawned in.
Lifehacker’s weekly Streaming column looks at how technology is keeping us entertained.
Comments
12 responses to “Five Movie Franchise Reboots That Need To Be Killed With Fire”
I’m sure some of these could be creatively re-imagined. Who thought that BSG had such potential? (OK partly squandered, but it was a great ride).
That said, there are so many possible new franchises floating around in books, comics etc that I despair every time I see Hulk or Spiderman re-re-re-booted with interchangeable story lines.
I ain’t fraid of no goats!
That’s a surprisingly jaded view from you Chris… Not that I disagree though…! 🙂
You’re right, Police Academy, Gremlins and Ghostbusters don’t need a reboot…but that’s only because they ruled already.
Police Academy? No, we need more Police Academy.
You want ideas for movies?
From the 80’s Budweiser ads – the Swedish Olympic Bikini Team.
From the TV show Coupling – Lesbian Spank Inferno.
From Forgetting Sarah Marshall – Dracula [as a comedy musical with muppets]
I’ve been waiting 25 years for another Ghostbusters movie!! Having said that I just found another story that claims Bill Murray won’t be in it. Which would ruin the film.
Hasn’t The Crow been more or less rebooted twice already?
For the record, Police Academy films are funny, if you’re an idiot. Which I am.
Not exactly – the Crow comic series are separate stories within the same mythology, and the four films took the same route. The first film was based on the first series. So from that point of view, an adaptation of another Crow story might make sense.
Given the straight-to-video nature of the last 2 efforts though, probably not.
I suppose you could say that the TV show, being about Eric Draven, was a reboot but it would be inaccurate to consider the other films reboots. Eric Draven isn’t the only Crow. Though to some he may be THE Crow. Or would it be THE The Crow?
I’m pretty much on board with this…..though another GB or Indy ‘could’ be ok……
It still amazes me though of the ‘reboots’, heck there are things called books and novels that are just ‘itching’ to be made into movies….l
If anyone needs and idea, I would “love” for the John DeChancie trilogy “Star Rigger” to be a movie series, go make that and stop rehashing things!
Author says they didn’t like any Police Academy film. Unfortunately I missed that big cue to stop reading and kept going.