Welcome to the show folks....
The internet is probably already burning up with this news, but who am I to spurn a trip on a bandwagon, but in case you haven't heard already Warner Bros. is going to do a remake of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but without creator Joss Whedon, and with the original movie's weakest links.
Now most of you are probably remembering that cult-classic TV series created and executive produced by Joss Whedon, but this deal is all about the original movie. The original movie was made by the husband and wife producing/directing team of Fran and Kaz Kuzui from a script by Whedon. The original film has its moments, but it's an uneven film at best, mostly due to the Kuzui's desire to make it more of a broad slapstick farce over Whedon's original blend of horror and sly humor.
Whedon was able to get his vision done more or less his way on the small screen, but since the Kuzui's had control of the title, they became the show's co-executive producers.
Now the Kuzui's are hoping to cash in on the goodwill earned by the show by taking that venerable title they own and slapping it onto a whole new script to be made by Warner Bros.
Let's look at the pros and cons of this decision:
PROS:
1. While the original movie was more or less forgotten, a lot of people have fond memories of the TV show's original run, and its reach has expanded through re-runs, DVDs, and a vibrant fan culture on the internet.
2. Since it's the type of movie that won't have any big name stars, it will probably be cheaply produced.
3. There's a chance that the writer doing the script might have a fresh take that no one sees coming.
CONS:
1. The core Buffy fans are at heart core Joss Whedon fans. Most of those fans don't like the Kuzui's original movie, and think of it as an aberration at best, abomination at worst.
2. Those core Buffy fans look at this news and are repulsed. They don't see the characters and carefully detailed universe from the series they love getting a new lease on life, they see this as a blatant cash grab exploiting the major studio's love of remakes of anything and everything they can get.
3. For the film to succeed the makers are
going to need those core fans on their side. So far, all I've seen coming from those fans is some pretty harsh negativity. Something that could have been avoided if there was at least token Whedon involvement, or endorsement of the project. This means that these fans are going to actively work against the "remake" and that's really bad.
Why?
Because outside of the show's core fans, most people either don't know the name Buffy, don't care, or actively don't want to know or care. To make a feature film work they need the core fan community spreading a lot of goodwill around via the internet. That's probably not going to happen barring some sort of miraculous event.
4. The odds of there being a fresh and original take on this material are pretty slim. Remember, this is going to be a major studio movie. That means they're going to do rewrites by new writers, most of them knowing or caring nothing about the source material, and anything else they can think of to justify theexpense accounts existence of the studio executives overseeing the movie. My money's on the film coming out as a ditzy PG rated farce about a Paris Hilton type socialite staking vampires in between some low-end fart and wiener jokes and high-end shopping montages.
So you can see that I don't have much hope for this movie.
Leave what you think in the comments.
The internet is probably already burning up with this news, but who am I to spurn a trip on a bandwagon, but in case you haven't heard already Warner Bros. is going to do a remake of Buffy The Vampire Slayer, but without creator Joss Whedon, and with the original movie's weakest links.
Now most of you are probably remembering that cult-classic TV series created and executive produced by Joss Whedon, but this deal is all about the original movie. The original movie was made by the husband and wife producing/directing team of Fran and Kaz Kuzui from a script by Whedon. The original film has its moments, but it's an uneven film at best, mostly due to the Kuzui's desire to make it more of a broad slapstick farce over Whedon's original blend of horror and sly humor.
Whedon was able to get his vision done more or less his way on the small screen, but since the Kuzui's had control of the title, they became the show's co-executive producers.
Now the Kuzui's are hoping to cash in on the goodwill earned by the show by taking that venerable title they own and slapping it onto a whole new script to be made by Warner Bros.
Let's look at the pros and cons of this decision:
PROS:
1. While the original movie was more or less forgotten, a lot of people have fond memories of the TV show's original run, and its reach has expanded through re-runs, DVDs, and a vibrant fan culture on the internet.
2. Since it's the type of movie that won't have any big name stars, it will probably be cheaply produced.
3. There's a chance that the writer doing the script might have a fresh take that no one sees coming.
CONS:
1. The core Buffy fans are at heart core Joss Whedon fans. Most of those fans don't like the Kuzui's original movie, and think of it as an aberration at best, abomination at worst.
2. Those core Buffy fans look at this news and are repulsed. They don't see the characters and carefully detailed universe from the series they love getting a new lease on life, they see this as a blatant cash grab exploiting the major studio's love of remakes of anything and everything they can get.
3. For the film to succeed the makers are
going to need those core fans on their side. So far, all I've seen coming from those fans is some pretty harsh negativity. Something that could have been avoided if there was at least token Whedon involvement, or endorsement of the project. This means that these fans are going to actively work against the "remake" and that's really bad.Why?
Because outside of the show's core fans, most people either don't know the name Buffy, don't care, or actively don't want to know or care. To make a feature film work they need the core fan community spreading a lot of goodwill around via the internet. That's probably not going to happen barring some sort of miraculous event.
4. The odds of there being a fresh and original take on this material are pretty slim. Remember, this is going to be a major studio movie. That means they're going to do rewrites by new writers, most of them knowing or caring nothing about the source material, and anything else they can think of to justify the
So you can see that I don't have much hope for this movie.
Leave what you think in the comments.
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