MGM Seeks Director For WarGames Remake

[MovieBob]

MGM Seeks Director For WarGames Remake

Shall we play a game?

Just accept it: Pop-cultural "turnover" moves so fast now that every single dubious classic of the 80s and 90s is going to be remade in the near future. Some will be bad, some will be good, hopefully MGM's newly-announced do-over of WarGames will be one of the good ones.

The 1983 original is often called one of the best science-fiction thrillers of its era, and is considered a landmark in the depictions of home-computing and "hacker" culture onscreen. The film starred Matthew Broderick as a troublemaking teenaged computer whiz who likes to hack into software companies to play unreleased video games. Unfortunately, his latest conquest turns out to actually be "Joshua," a super-advanced Artificial Intelligence system housed at NORAD designed to assume control of U.S. missile defenses in the event of a major attack. Unfortunately, "Joshua" interprets the teen's maneuvers in a thermonuclear war simulation "game" as a genuine attack and begins a countdown to a real nuclear strike against the Soviet Union.

MGM is reported to be seeking relative newcomers Dean Israelite and Arash Amel to direct and write the remake, respectively. No details as to what the (presumably) modernized scenario of the film have been revealed at this time. A sequel to the original film, WarGames: The Dead Code, was released direct-to-DVD in 2009 and featured "Joshua" being used to combat a new out-of-control military computer named R.I.P.L.E.Y.


Source: Deadline [http://www.deadline.com/2014/06/mgms-wargames-reboot-lands-helmer-dean-israelite-scribe-arash-amel/]

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[Zontar]

Oh great, another Cold War movie which doesn't work in the post-Cold War setting is getting a reboot despite the fact that nothing that made the movie work could do so now because of the new realities of the world.

God dame it MGM, first a Stargate reboot/sequel which uses the only part no one pays attention to and uses a director who has open contempt for the franchise, now this? Who the hell is the lunatic running the asylum?

 

[octafish]

A strange game. The only winning move is to not endlessly remake successful movies to create lesser products. How about a nice game of chess?

 

[heroicbob]

well luckily if they want to turn it into a terminator-esque action movie the wargames video game has already done that

one of my favorite games for the Playstation 1 btw

 

[Sniper Team 4]

(Slams face into computer desk)

Sigh...another reboot/retelling/remake. The more I hear about reboots, the more I...I just don't know anymore. The more tired I get, I suppose? At least they're not rebooting cartoons--no, wait. Smurfs, Chipmunks, etc...hm...

Got it. At least they're not doing Disne--Maleficent.

Okay, they haven't remade Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, or any new cartoon franchises yet. That's safe to say, right?

 

[epicdwarf]

Why? We do not have the threat of commies nuking us to hell. You can't take the cold war out of a movie about the cold war. That is like remaking Red Dawn only having North Ko? wait.

Okay, they haven't remade Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, or any new cartoon franchises yet. That's safe to say, right?

The Spider-man franchise got remade sorely after it ended. I would not be surpassed if they announced Shrek: Reborn.

 

[FalloutJack]

Where is WOPR when we need him?

Oh great, another Cold War movie which doesn't work in the post-Cold War setting is getting a reboot despite the fact that nothing that made the movie work could do so now because of the new realities of the world.

God dame it MGM, first a Stargate reboot/sequel which uses the only part no one pays attention to and uses a director who has open contempt for the franchise, now this? Who the hell is the lunatic running the asylum?

If they made Red Dawn with China, they'll think of something. Probably put Putin on the spot.

 

[Vault101]

The Spider-man franchise got remade sorely after it ended. I would not be surpassed if they announced Shrek: Reborn.

given the pattern that would not surpise me unfortunatly

the original is "old enough" and it sort of fizzled out

which makes it remake fodder....*shakes head*

 

[Nowhere Man]

So Predator and then this, among the long list of others..

It deeply saddens me to think that the current generations will probably be the first to see the same films rehashed twice, maybe three times within their life spans. Sometimes it really feels like Hollywood is allergic to new ideas and creating NEW CLASSICS for the young and upcoming generations to call their own. There are a few exceptions but it's getting exceedingly rare nowadays. Oh well, this means I can save money on movie tickets by catching up on the older movies I haven't gotten around to yet.

Okay, they haven't remade Kung Fu Panda, How to Train Your Dragon, Shrek, or any new cartoon franchises yet. That's safe to say, right?

"Yet" is the keyword here. I think Hollywood is reaching their own version of Moore's law here. Imagine an idiocratic near future where half the tentpole releases get rebooted about every 2 years. I would say less but I'm accounting for the actual production time it takes to make the damn things.

 

[Zontar]

Where is WOPR when we need him?

Oh great, another Cold War movie which doesn't work in the post-Cold War setting is getting a reboot despite the fact that nothing that made the movie work could do so now because of the new realities of the world.

God dame it MGM, first a Stargate reboot/sequel which uses the only part no one pays attention to and uses a director who has open contempt for the franchise, now this? Who the hell is the lunatic running the asylum?

If they made Red Dawn with China, they'll think of something. Probably put Putin on the spot.

They didn't make Red Dawn with China though (well, in production they did, but they changed it in post to North Korea at the cost of a million dollars because the world just don't work that way anymore).

 

[FalloutJack]

Where is WOPR when we need him?

Oh great, another Cold War movie which doesn't work in the post-Cold War setting is getting a reboot despite the fact that nothing that made the movie work could do so now because of the new realities of the world.

God dame it MGM, first a Stargate reboot/sequel which uses the only part no one pays attention to and uses a director who has open contempt for the franchise, now this? Who the hell is the lunatic running the asylum?

If they made Red Dawn with China, they'll think of something. Probably put Putin on the spot.

They didn't make Red Dawn with China though (well, in production they did, but they changed it in post to North Korea at the cost of a million dollars because the world just don't work that way anymore).

I'm not sure it works that way either, but the point remains. Hollywood doesn't let logic get in the way of movies.

 

[Shamanic Rhythm]

The 1983 original is often called one of the best science-fiction thrillers of its era

Citation needed.

The film starred Matthew Broderick as a troublemaking teenaged computer whiz who likes to hack into software companies to play unreleased video games.

I get the feeling I know which event [http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2011-02-21-the-boy-who-stole-half-life-2-article] they will end up using as a reference point to provide the obligatory edgy twist to the remake.

 

[Orks da best]

What next to remake? The Stuff? Gremlins? Other once popular or well known movies?

 

[MrBaskerville]

What next to remake? The Stuff? Gremlins? Other once popular or well known movies?

They ARE remaking Gremlins... (and Poltergeist + Suspiria and Goonies :/).

 

[teamcharlie]

I like computers and I like video games. Who cares if it's the same brand as a movie from 30 years ago? I'm down for a Wargames Reboot. Bonus points if they make the hacking look 'cool' Lawnmower Man/Hackers-style, because anything resembling actual hacking would be incredibly boring to watch.

 

[weirdee]

The moment they consider the original material too boring and decide to "jazz it up" with "action sequences" is the moment they've lost the point of this movie.

also, wouldn't hold your breath for a goonies release that either has anything to do with the original, or won't feature any virtual mockups of actors who couldn't hold their breaths long enough

 

[Shiftygiant]

Yes, of course! Let's take a movie that was a product of it's time and update it today because kids these days would be too distracted by the 80's, because it worked so well for Robocop and Red Dawn.

Question: Is there actually two nations on earth at this moment in time that is currently locked in a cold war with the threat of nuclear war? The beauty of the cold war was the several dozen nuclear powers and potential nuclear powers threatening to shoot each other, which made something like Wargames frighteningly plausible anywhere (And had happened twice). Now, in this increasingly more, for a lack of a better word, 'stable' world, who is ready to throw a nuke?

 

[Kahani]

It deeply saddens me to think that the current generations will probably be the first to see the same films rehashed twice, maybe three times within their life spans.

They really won't. Titanic, Dracula, Frankenstein; people have been repeatedly remaking the same films for as long as films have existed. Maybe some of those can be discounted because they're making a film based on the same thing rather than explicitly remaking the same film, but then you have things like King Kong which have had multiple remakes. Godzilla, in the same way as King Kong, has at least two actual remakes on top of all the sequels. Night of the Living dead, remade twice. How many times has The Poseidon Adventure been done now? Robin Hood? King Arthur? Shakespeare? Just about any Greek or Biblical mythology?

Constantly remaking shittier versions of old films may be annoying, but it's not in any way a new trend. The first generation to see the same films rehashed multiple times was my great grandparents. The first generation to see the same story rehashed multiple times was whichever generation hundreds of thousands of years ago first invented stories.

 

[Chessrook44]

Considering the modern setup of thrillers and how the world is at the time... I predict instead of the threat of nukes getting sent everywhere, it'll be the threat of PLANES getting hijacked and sent crashing.

Because TERRISTS.

This will go terribly.

 

[Tumedus]

There is essentially zero chance that this turns out to be "one of the good ones."

While the movie isn't perfect, there is simply too little in the original that could be reliably improved upon. 2 young actors they manged to get before they became really famous. An underrated cast of veteran actors. A deeper understanding of and a better representation of computers than most current films are able to manage. The score, the sound effects, the zeitgeist.

Not gonna happen.