Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch is being remade. This angers me not because I’m against remakes, but because I have always claimed that I am not against remakes. I may say that there’s nothing wrong with Soderbergh recasting Ocean’s 11, or Van Sant re-shooting Psycho. I’m amused by the idea that someone feels that it is worth the money and effort to remake The Fog and The Pink Panther.
But now there’s a part of me that is bristling–not just because I don’t want anyone to dare even to think of redoing Peckinpah’s masterpiece, but also because I’ve flattered myself into thinking that I’d never write somthing like this (which I’ve taken from Victoria Lindrea’s review of the remake of The Italian Job): “A homage, rather than a remake, it moved the action to Los Angeles and gave the traffic jam a hi-tech spin. But in aping a classic, it could not help but disappoint fans of the original.” Is there anything more predictable than “it could not help but disappoint the fans of the original”? Hollywood must know that “fans of the original” do not, by rule, constitute the majority of ticket sales of remakes. Of course “fans of the original” will be disappointed. Why? Because (I’ve always told myself) they’re idiots. Continue reading The Wild Bunch