TOP 12 FILM REBOOTS – Discuss..

Tomb Raider

After Tomb Raider: The Cradle of Life – the second movie to star Angelina Jolie as the gun-toting archaeologist Lara Croft – we’d heard precious little about any further instalments of the series. Until early this year that is, with Warner Bros. and increasingly prolific producer Dan Lin (Terminator Salvation, Sherlock Holmes) officially announcing plans for a new, Jolie-less reboot of the game-inspired series. Lin said they would “re-imagine” the busty explorer’s origins, and that the new movie would be more “realistic” than previous instalments.

Judge Dredd

The 1995 Sylvester Stallone version of Judge Dredd was a godawful mess of a movie, opting for comedy and a helmet-free Dredd over the dark and brooding nature of the source material. Hopefully this new version – guaranteed to be a Sly-free zone – will be as archaic and ultravlionet as stories that generations of British comic book fans grew up with. Rebellion, publisher of the 2000 AD comics, is developing with Brit-based producers DNA. More on the project when we have it.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles

The last big screen outing for the amphibian crime fighters was the middling animation TMNT back in 2007. Now 300 producer Scott Mednick is on the case for this reboot of the live-action films, the last of which came out in 1993 (and was heavily inspired by Kurosawa classic The Seven Samurai). For the new version, expect sinister sounding ‘face-replacement technology’ to make the green heroes a bit more realistic, as well as an overall vision that remains faithful to Peter Laird and Kevin Eastman’s original comics.

Daredevil

This oft-mooted reboot of the Marvel character is certainly a long shot. Many fans still have bad memories of the lame Ben Affleck-starring 2003 version. 20th Century Fox head honcho Tom Rothman doesn’t think that would necessarily stand in the way of a reboot however, if “a visionary at the level [of] Chris Nolan” could be found to direct. Recently there was also a fairly dubious rumour about BSG star Kate Sackoff playing Daredevil villain Typhoid Mary.

Predators

A reboot of the series that – praise the lord – should also totally ignore the increasingly wretched AvP movies. Robert Rodriguez is producing the project, with the Sin City co-helmer hiring Danish director Nimrod Antal (Vacancy) to direct. Rodriguez has promised a Batman Begins-style reinvention of the series rather than a sequel or straight-up remake, and will “take the character everybody loves, but rethink it and make it for the time.” The question is though; will Arnie be back for a cameo?

The Crow

As far as we know The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen helmer Stephen Norrington is still on to direct an update of the James O’Barr comic, and will be looking for a different tone to the Alex Proyas 1994 version. Norrington told Variety: “Whereas Proyas’ original was gloriously gothic and stylized, the new movie will be realistic, hard-edged and mysterious, almost documentary-style.” Norrington hasn’t been able to get a movie off the ground since League however, so we’re not holding our breath. Proyas really isn’t happy about it either, saying: “The whole notion of remaking it, to me, is just ridiculous and I’d have nothing to do with it.”

Conan the Barbarian

The past few months has seen two major updates about the Conan reimagining. Firstly Marcus Nispel – who helmed the decent Friday the 13th reboot – was was hired as director. Then we heard a rumour that Roland Kickinger – a 41-year-old Austrian actor who looks an awful lot like original Conan Arnold Schwarzenegger – was the frontrunner for the title role, although this has since seemingly been debunked. The film is set to begin shooting later this year, so expect to hear much concrete news about it in the next few months.

Robocop

Last year it was announced that Darren Aronofsky would helm a remake of Paul Verhoeven’s classic satire, with studio MGM promising an “edgy and provocative” film. However the director then announced he would be working on thriller Black Swan next, so Robocop is on the back-burner, with production not scheduled to start until mid-2010 at the earliest. However if/when it does get a release, consider us excited.

Fantastic Four

Not a dead cert this one, but a complete reboot for Marvel’s first family would certainly be intriguing. Whilst the two Tim Story-directed efforts did reasonable business, many felt they were too light and campy – especially after The Dark Knight, and Marvel’s own Iron Man. Fox boss Tom Rothman said as much recently, telling IESB he wanted a new FF franchise to be “less bubblegum” and to “follow the Iron Man template”. Nonetheless, we’ve heard nothing concrete about this, so don’t expect a darker, more moody Fantastic 4 for a while.

Mortal Kombat

We thought the proposed reboot of the (pretty mediocre) Mortal Kombat franchise was dead in the water, having not heard anything about it for the last two years. That was until a strange story popped up in the San Gabriel Valley Tribune this July, with Chris Casamassa – the actor who played Scorpion in the first Kombat – saying he would be reprising his role for a new MK filming this September. It’s hardly the most substantial evidence, but the news did spookily coincide with the end of the long-running legal dispute between Midway and previous MK producer Larry Kasanoff, allowing the film rights to change hands, so watch this space…

Superman

It’s inevitable that someone will make a new Superman movie, but that’s the only thing certain about the future of the troubled superhero franchise. A legal dispute between Warner Bros. and co-creator Jerry Siegel is just the latest in a long line of problems that has dogged the project. Hell, we don’t even know if the movie will be a reboot, although the online rumour mill has increasingly seemed to suggest that Brandon Routh and Bryan Singer won’t be involved. One of the latest – and most intriguing – peices of gossip we’ve heard is that the Wachowski borthers (of The Matrix fame) have been planning to produce a large-scale reboot, with their protégé James McTeigue on directing duties – a rumour he did little to dispell earlier this month.

A Nightmare on Elm Street

We end with a reboot that’s definitely happening, and one we hope will be rather good. Platinum Dunes, who masterminded the far-better-than-it-should-have-been Friday the 13th update, is hoping to do the same for Freddy Krueger, with Rorschach himself – Jackie Earle Haley – donning the character’s iconic clawed gloves. With the franchise becoming camp and humorous in later instalments, the producers have seemingly concentrated on returning to the dark, scary roots of the original… that’s if the footage IGN saw at Comic-Con is anything to go by.