Not all remakes are created equal, especially if you ask the people whose work is being remade.
From sci-fi icons to slasher legends, here's a look at some stars who had no
qualms about trashing the films that dared to try and improve on their originals.
The late comic legend Gene Wilder graced countless Hollywood classics during his decades-long career,
from "Bonnie and Clyde" to "Blazing Saddles." For many, however, he'll always be the brilliantly
eccentric and borderline murderous candy mogul in 1971's "Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."
More than three decades later, Tim Burton decided to bring the
Roald Dahl story back to life for a new generation with a new title,
"Charlie and the Chocolate Factory," and a new Wonka in Johnny Depp. Sadly,
for many of those who had grown up with the original, the two regular partners-in-crime
were deemed to have needlessly messed with perfection. As far as the man who'd assumed the
titular role the first time around was concerned, their reboot was nothing short of a travesty.
Before the film had even been released, Wilder told The Telegraph,
"It's just some people sitting around thinking, 'How can we make some more money?' Why else
would you remake 'Willy Wonka?' I don't see the point of going back and doing it all over again."
Fortunately, Wilder was still able to look on the bright side, saying,
"Right now, the only thing that does take some of the edge off this for
me is that Willy Wonka's name isn't in the title."
If Burton and Depp were looking for Wilder's blessing, it would seem that they never got it.
"You get nothing! You lose! Good day, sir!"
Lewis Gilbert's 1966 film "Alfie" is notable for several reasons:
it cemented Michael Caine's status as one of Britain's finest leading men,
it was the first film to be "suggested for mature audiences" by the MPAA,
and it inspired an American remake starring Jude Law almost 40 years later. Unfortunately,
Caine himself wasn't as enthusiastic about that third point as he was about the first two.
Although Caine had become friendly with Jude Law during production on "Sleuth" in 2007,
that didn't stop him from giving his true opinions when reviewing Jude Law's performance
as the titular Alfie, a cocky womanizer who finally faces consequences for his actions.
In a 2009 interview with The Independent,
Caine expressed that he thought the newer take on the character was far less self-aware, saying,
"At the end of the movie, Alfie says, 'What's it all about?' But the minute Jude walks on,
you see a young man who knows exactly what everything is all about."
Caine also claimed that the remake had far more insidious undertones:
"...it became sinister instead of funny. It just became some guy who doesn't care about women...
a male chauvinist pig, but with knowledge. I played an innocent male chauvinist pig."
Eyebrows were raised in 2010 when it was revealed that just three years after Sam
Raimi's Spider-Man trilogy wrapped up, the webbed superhero would be getting another origin story,
only this time with Andrew Garfield in the lead role instead of Tobey Maguire.
But following disappointing returns for 2014's "The Amazing Spider-Man 2,"
Peter Parker's cinematic adventures appeared to have come to an end.
However, those eyebrows were raised even further just a year after that,
when news emerged that Spider-Man would be getting the reboot treatment once again — this
time as a major player in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. Relative unknown Tom Holland landed the
leading role the third time around, teasing the character with a cameo in 2016's "Captain America:
Civil War" before fronting his own standalone film, "Spider-Man: Homecoming," in 2017.
That same year, Kirsten Dunst pretty much spoke for everyone with superhero fatigue
during an interview with Marie Claire. Dunst, who portrayed love interest Mary-Jane Watson
in the three Spider-Man movies of the early 2000s, told the magazine,
"We made the best ones, so who cares? I'm like, 'You make it all you want.'
They're just milking that cow for money. It's so obvious. You know what I mean?"
That wasn't the first time the star of "Melancholia"
and "Marie Antoinette" voiced her displeasure with the current trajectory of superhero films.
Just a few weeks earlier, the actor had told Variety:
"Everyone likes our Spider-Man. C'mon, am I right or what?
Listen, I'd rather be in the first ones than the new ones."
"Who you gonna call?" Not Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and company, if you're one of the many
"Ghostbusters" fans who deemed their reboot of the '80s classic to be sacrilegious. Yes,
the 2016 comedy somehow caused more controversy than the entirety of Lars von Trier's filmography,
with much of the backlash centered on the fact that director Paul Feig
dared to feature — to the shock and horror of thousands — an all female Ghostbusting team.
Even the fact that several of the original's stars made cameos couldn't appease the disgruntled.
One such returnee, Ernie Hudson, even gave the naysayers further ammunition
four years later in an interview with Living Life Fearless. The actor said,
"A reboot, to me, means you're trying to do the movie over. Another version
of what we already did. And I think that was a mistake."
Hudson, who played Winston Zeddemore in the
original and Uncle Bill Jenkins more than 30 years later, added,
"It wasn't a continuation or an extension of. It was somehow a different universe there.
You know what I mean? It's kind of like us, but it's us but not us."
Lori Petty certainly refused to pull any punches with her opinion of Ericson Core's "Point Break"
remake — despite the fact that she hadn't even seen the trailer, let alone the finished film.
When asked by a Twitter follower what she felt about the millennial version, the actor responded,
"Pretty sure it's the dumbest idea in the history of ideas. Bigelow? Keanu? Swayze? Realllllllly?"
Petty, who appeared as Keanu Reeves' love interest Tyler in the original 1991 bromance,
told The Hollywood Reporter that her disdain for the mere idea of redoing "Point Break" was so
great that her manager gave her a call to ask why she was being so critical. She simply responded,
"Because that's bulls---! That's some stupid s--- right there!"
Critics appeared to agree with Petty's assessment upon the film's release. The 2015 reboot,
which saw Teresa Palmer take on Petty's role, has a paltry Rotten Tomatoes score of just 11%. Ouch.
The classic series "The A-Team" may have gotten the Hollywood treatment in 2010,
but pity the fool who believed that Dirk Benedict would give his seal of approval.
Admittedly, the actor who shot to global fame as the charming schemer Templeton 'Faceman'
Peck in the 1980s series, did agree to make a brief cameo in the big screen adaptation.
However, it was a role that he later told Birmingham Live he wishes he'd turned down:
"You'll miss me if you blink. I kind of regret doing it because it's a non-part.
They wanted to be able to say: 'Oh yeah, the original cast are in it'
but we're not. It is three seconds. It's kind of insulting."
Benedict, who was joined by former co-star Dwight Schultz for his cameo appearance,
didn't think much of the film's prospects overall, commenting,
quote, "They'll screw it up." "The A-Team" film, which saw Bradley Cooper take over from Benedict,
did admittedly divide critics on its release. Although it made its $110 million budget back,
20th Century Fox decided against producing the sequel they had originally planned.
"Listen, now I know this is good for the body, but how do you protect the face?"
"Eh, you don't mess with it, kid."
Dirk Benedict isn't the only star who trashed a reboot of their most
famous TV series despite having signed up for a cameo. Pamela Anderson, who briefly reprised her
role as lifeguard Captain Casey Jean Parker in the 2017 remake of "Baywatch," said three years
later that she believes all the slow-motion beach running should have stayed in the past.
The actor, who was briefly joined by another former "Baywatch" legend,
creator and star David Hasselhoff, in the reboot, remarked,
"I didn't like it. Let's just keep the bad TV as bad TV. That's what's charming about 'Baywatch,'
you know? Trying to make these movies out of television is just messing with it."
Anderson also argued that the movie should have taken more cues from the original 90s show,
particularly when it came to its budget, adding,
"$65 million would make a good movie. We made our show for like $500,000 — you have
the same explosions, the same sequences of water. That's the fun part; being creative."
For many children of the '90s, Power Rangers was the ultimate superhero spectacle.
After two seasons of tokusatsu inspired action, the series made the move to the big screen for
1995's imaginatively-titled "Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers: The Movie." Despite the film
quadrupling its budget at the box office, and a weak sequel in 1997, fans had to wait
another 20 years to see the color-coordinated warriors save the world in cinemas again.
Of course, like nearly every superhero movie since "Batman Begins," 2017's "Power Rangers" was a much
darker, and some would say less fun, affair than its source material.
Two such detractors were David Yost, who played Blue Ranger Billy Cranston,
and Walter Jones, who played Black Ranger Zack Taylor.
While Yost called the film as a whole, quote, "lackadaisical," Jones' issues with
the reboot had more to do with the way the Black Ranger was portrayed — specifically,
the lack of the original Black Ranger's trademark combination of fighting and
dance. During a panel at the C2E2 Convention, Jones told the audience,
"Hip Hop Kido was a really important element of who I was on Power Rangers.
I think if they would have added that… it would have been awesome.”
While reboot actors RJ Cyler and Ludi Lin did decent enough jobs in their portrayals of the
Blue Ranger and Black Ranger, respectively, die-hard fans agree that the newer take
lacks much of the heart, soul, and personality of the original series.
From "Hakuna Matata" to "Circle of Life," Elton John and Tim Rice's anthemic soundtrack for 1994's
"The Lion King" was just as instrumental to its success as the animation and voice cast. The pair
received three out of five possible Academy Award Best Original Song nods for their efforts, winning
for "Can You Feel the Love Tonight," while its parent album shifted 10 million copies worldwide.
Unfortunately for them, John and Rice were relegated to the roles of executive
producers when it came to the music for the 2019 remake. That same year, John told GQ that the
remake's mix of covers and new compositions couldn't compare to the original, saying:
"The magic and joy were lost. The soundtrack hasn't had nearly the same impact in the
charts that it had 25 years ago, when it was the best selling album of the year.
The new soundtrack fell out of the charts so quickly."
The Rocket Man, who also helped compose the score for The Lion King's Broadway adaptation,
also revealed his disappointment at being sidelined the second time around:
"I wasn't really welcomed or treated with the same level of respect. That makes me extremely sad. I'm
so happy that the right spirit for the music lives on with 'The Lion King' stage musical."
"Home Alone" was an unexpected smash hit, making nearly half a billion
dollars at the box office and catapulting Macaulay Culkin to international stardom
at just 10 years old. The movie was helmed by director Chris Columbus, who would go
on to direct further hits in "Mrs. Doubtfire," "Rent," and the first two "Harry Potter" movies.
However, it seems unlikely that the filmmaker will be forking out a Disney+ subscription
to see the likes of Kenan Thompson, Pete Holmes and "Jojo Rabbit" actor Archie Yates
in the forthcoming 2022 version of his classic home invasion caper. While promoting
another yuletide family film, "The Christmas Chronicles 2," in 2020, Columbus told Insider,
"Nobody got in touch with me about it,
and it's a waste of time as far as I'm concerned. What's the point?"
Columbus, who also took the director's chair for sequel "Home Alone 2:
Lost in New York," continued,
"I'm a firm believer that you don't remake films that have had the longevity of 'Home
Alone.' You're not going to create lightning in a bottle again. It's just not going to happen…
Do your own thing. Even if you fail miserably, at least you have come up with something original."
For many loyal "Child's Play" fans, Don Mancini is as integral to the killer doll franchise as
Chucky himself. The man not only penned the screenplays for its first seven installments,
he also served as director for three of them. But when MGM-United Artists decided
it wanted to rescue the murderous redhead from the direct-to-video market, it tasked
Tyler Burton Smith with penning the script and Lars Klevberg with taking the director's chair.
The studio did offer Mancini an executive producer credit — but he essentially told
them where to shove it. The horror maestro went on the warpath after hearing the news,
imploring fans to share disparaging articles about the remake and
regularly taking to Twitter to voice his displeasure.
During an appearance on the "Post Mortem" podcast hosted by regular Stephen King collaborator Mick
Garris, the disgruntled Mancini explained why he'd been left so hurt by the snub:
"I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three f---ing decades."
He also claimed that his executive producer offer on the 2019 movie was a hollow gesture, adding,
"They just wanted our approval, which I strenuously denied them. [...] It's
not just a paycheck. It's very personal. MGM's screwing with that."
Fortunately, Mancini's involvement in the franchise is far from over,
as his "Chucky" spinoff TV series is slated to hit the small screen in 2021.
“You know what they say… you just can't keep a good guy down."
Combining futuristic sporting action with social commentary, "Rollerball" stands alongside classics
like "Soylent Green" and "Death Race 2000" as one of the most interesting sci-fi films of the
mid-1970s. Unsurprisingly, MGM were hoping to hit another slam dunk — or whatever the Rollerball
equivalent is — more than 25 years later by serving up a much more bloodthirsty remake.
As pre-production for the 2002 version was underway,
producers hoped to bring back director Norman Jewison,
who had since been nominated for multiple Academy Awards for "Moonstruck." To the producers' dismay,
Jewison had no interest in returning to former glories, telling The New York Post,
"I passed on it because it was clear they were embracing the violence [that]
I used in the original to comment on the activities of multinational corporations."
The director also revealed that he'd been invited by MGM to a screening,
but had little interest in accepting.
"Die Hard" director John McTiernan had no such qualms about embracing violence when he took over
the director's chair, although he no doubt now wishes he'd followed Jewison's lead. Indeed, his
Rollerball remake bombed at the box office and is widely regarded as one of the worst films of the
early 21st century. Not only that, but the film got McTiernan in legal trouble, as he served 10
months in prison for hiring a private investigator to wiretap the phones of one of the film's
producers. It's not every day you see a movie so bad that the director was sent to jail for it.
Joe Pytka may not be a household name, but everyone knows his most popular film,
the animated-live-action-hybrid Michael Jordan vehicle "Space Jam." When asked his opinion on
"Space Jam: A New Legacy," which sees LeBron James teaming up with the Looney Tunes' finest
to defeat a villainous AI-G played by Don Cheadle, Pytka didn't hold back,
telling TMZ that he found it to be, quote, "an uninteresting mess."
Pytka claimed that it took him five sittings to finish Malcolm D. Lee's glorified Warner
Bros. commercial, argued that James didn't hold a candle to Jordan, and insisted that its array of
supporting characters lacked the star quality of Charles Barkley, Bill Murray and company.
Even the new Bugs Bunny couldn't escape Pytka's wrath, with the filmmaker remarking,
"He looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an
airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long."
Most reviews appeared to align with Pytka's, with "A New Legacy's" Rotten Tomatoes rating
hovering just below the 30% mark. Although the original remains a favorite of many '90s kids,
they might be looking at it through rose-colored glasses,
as its critical response wasn't that much better — its rating stands at just 44%.
You wouldn't expect Angela Lansbury, the 90-something voice of Mrs. Potts
in Disney's 1991 "Beauty and the Beast," to start dissing a movie from the House of Mouse,
but the transatlantic national treasure did just that after hearing that Emma Watson
would be portraying Belle in a live-action remake of the classic animated musical.
Like many of us who grew up watching Disney's animated classics in perfect cartoon form,
the "Murder She Wrote" star wondered aloud about the necessity of such a project.
Lansbury told Entertainment Weekly,
"I was a bit taken aback, naturally. I thought, 'Why? Why are we doing this over again?'
I can't understand what they're going to do with it that will be better than
what we've already done… it won't be like the cartoon that we did."
However, by the time she'd finished answering the question, the actor appeared
to have convinced herself that, actually, it might not be such a bad idea after all:
"It's one of the famous fairy stories that is known worldwide by children.
Therefore, why not? I don't blame them for doing it."
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