Last year, commercial director Carl Rinsch became the latest in a long line of directors stretching back to the ’80s to attempt a remake of Universal Studio’s classic Creature From The Black Lagoon. He replaced Breck Eisner on the project, who walked away from the project after spending nearly four years trying to get it in front of cameras.

Eisner recently talked to Shock Till You Drop and spoke candidly on the factors that killed his version – “It suffered from the realities of development hell and a writers strike.”

Understandably disappointed after putting so much work in to the project, Eisner was enthusiastic about what his version of the film could have been. “It would have been risky and amazing,” he stated. “The design of the Creature by Mark ‘Crash’ McCreery was awesome. True to the original, yet obviously updated for today’s technology. The journey on the Rita, the boat design, it was ready to go.”

Eisner got as far as scouting South American jungles for location shooting. “Scouting Peru, Brazil, Columbia. We went into the jungle of mirrors. It was an amazing experience. I didn’t come out of it empty-handed but I didn’t come out with a movie, which is what I would have wanted.”

And though the project now has a new director, Eisner is skeptical of The Creature From The Black Lagoon‘s chances of ever reaching cinemas. That isn’t a slam against Rinsch, though. Eisnerplaces the blame on two things – The amount of money spent on development over the years and the poor critical and box office reception for another Universal Studios monster remake, The Wolfman, earlier this year.

Between [the Wolfman failing] and spending a lot of money in development, it’s money against the movie. When a movie is that close to happening, it takes a long time for people to forget about spending that money and to be re-engaged in it. I’d love for somebody to make that movie. It won’t be me.

As a first time feature director, Rinsch has a difficult task ahead of him in finally getting Creature to the screen. Rinsch is also hard at work for Warner Brothers on their similarly long-in-development redo of Logan’s Run. He’s ambitious, I’ll give him that. Let’s see if that ambition can actually get either of these two projects on the screen.

There’s another director for Warner’s perpetually in development Logan’s Run remake. This time it is a commercials director Carl Erik Rinsch, who had been previously tapped to relaunch 20th Century Fox’s Aliens franchise before being pushed out by the studio in favor of Ridley Scott.

Based a bit loosely on the 1967 novel by William F. Nolan and George Clayton Johnson, the 1976 film depicted a future world where it was considered the height of community service, and somewhat mandatory, to commit a form of ritual suicide on one’s 30th birthday. Those who refuse are hunted by the police-like Sandmen. But as one Sandman’s (Michael York) own thirtieth birthday approaches, he begins to reconsider the rules of society and decides to run for a rumored place of safety called Sanctuary.

Rinsch has cut his teeth in commercials and received a bit of buzz last spring with the release of his short film The Gift, embedded below. There was even brief talk about the short being expanded to feature length. Rinsch was briefly in contention to film X-Men: First Class for Fox before the studio went with Kick-Ass director Matthew Vaughn. Rinsch finally landed a feature directing gig at Universal with a remake of the Japanese samurai film 47 Ronin, which is currently in pre-production. Rinsch is expected to move over to Logan’s Run following that film’s wrap.

Warners have been trying to get their Logan’s Run redo off the ground since in the mid-1990s. it wasn’t until 2004 that the project got any real traction when Bryan Singer came on board, though his involvement ceased due to his work on Superman Returns. Joseph Kosinski was the next to occupy the position before being distracted by his Tron: Legacy duties over at Disney. Both Flightplan director Robert Schwentke and James McTeigue were also briefly attached.

Via the Hollywood Reporter.

James Franco is reportedly in talks to headline Twentieth Century Fox’s Planet Of The Apes reboot, Rise Of The Apes. Franco will play a scientist in contemporary San Francisco who gets caught between humanity and a batch of genetically-altered intelligent apes. Fox has recently fast-tracked the film, which will be directed by Rupert Wyatt, for a June 24, 2011 release. Cameras are scheduled to begin rolling July 5th.

Rather than use humans in makeup, this new version will utilize apes created through computer imagery and animated via motion capture performance. Peter Jackson’s WETA Digital will be providing the work.

Fox has been making a priority of restarting their Planet Of The Apes franchise for some time now. But instead of making a direct remake of the classic 1968 film – we saw how well that went for Tim Burton in 2001 – the studio has been keen on starting off with an “origin story” of sorts, showing exactly how apes came to rule over humans, but without the time travel and pre-destination elements of the franchise’s Escape From The Planet Of The Apes and Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes. After many attempts, it seems as if studio brass are happy with the script from Amanda Silver and Rick Jaffa to finally pull the trigger.

Via Deadline.

Any film remake fairly or unfairly invites comparison to the original. Are the new filmmakers finding different and engaging things to explore in the material or are they simply going through a rote rehash of the original story? Does the new version adhere too closely to its progenitor, never finding its own life, or does it veer too far from the source material, leaving one to wonder if the filmmakers really understand what made the original film work?

The new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a bit of all these approaches. Its basic story and many of its scares are familiar to those who have seen director Wes Craven’s 1984 original. But the variations this new version introduces fall flat, never letting the film become its own piece, never escaping out of the long-cast shadow of its forerunner.

On it’s surface, the plot of Nightmare version 2010 is roughly the same as the 1984 part. Several high school students discover that they are all having the same dreams about a man with a burned face and a glove with steak-knife claws stalking them through various grungy, industrial settings. It soon becomes apparent that if the mysterious figure is far more than a figment of dreamtime and he wants these teens dead.

This new version of A Nightmare On Elm Street is a movie whose idea of characterization is placing a protagonist in a Joy Division t-shirt. It’s this kind of lazy shorthand that hobbles whatever good intentions the filmmakers may have had when they embarked on this project. But instead, we are left with the teens that Freddy terrorizes through the film being fairly nondescript cannon fodder for a script that doesn’t really give us a reason to care whether or not they survive to the final credits or cheer if they do. The original film played with the idea of the disconnect between teenagers and their parents. Here, however, the parents are drawn just a flatly as their children and we just don’t care about them either.

The script does no great service to franchise villain Freddy Kruger. It’s mutation of pre-supernatural transformation Kruger from serial child murderer to a pedophiliac day care center worker who succumbs to the brutal mob justice of outraged parents feels like an attempt to be edgy, but comes across as just plain lurid. It creates an “ick” factor that causes one to pull back from their engagement in the story at a time when the movie should be further reeling in the audience’s attention. The movie does try to float a “Was he really a pedophile or wasn’t he?” mystery at one point, but it is introduced out of left field, goes absolutely nowhere and is just as summarily dismissed before the climax.

Perhaps thinking that fans were expecting them to recreate some of its scares verbatim, the filmmakers stage several scenes familiar to anyone who has scene the original Nightmare, occasionally trying to put a different twist on them, subverting expectations. But each and every time they try this, the attempt falls flat. The famous sequence where Freddy tries to drown the film’s heroine in a bath tub gets a nod. The scene plays out as a bit of feint against your expectations, but does it so badly that it comes off as laughable. Early in the original, there’s a moment where Freddy seems to be pushing through a wall, stretching it like rubber, above an unsuspecting teen’s head. The new version replicates this scene, but uses CGI to realize what had been done as a practical effect by Craven in 1984. Amazingly, the newer version looks worse than the original in terms of just being a special effect! Peter Jackson had a similar sequence also created through CGI in his horror comedy The Frighteners made a decade and a half earlier that looked markedly better.

But it is not just when it tries to echo the original film that this new iteration of Nightmare fails. The movie restructures its beginning somewhat for a more Psycho-like bait and switch. But let’s face it, director Samuel Bayer is no Hitchcock and no one in his cast approaches the level of an actor like Janet Leigh. In fact, the film is so blandly directed – the only time the movie makes you jump is when a sudden, loud noise thunders across the soundtrack – that it is a little sad that the most ominous camera work is devoted to a scene where Nancy’s mother is asked to sign a “consent to treat” form at a hospital. When you’re trying to make a clipboard seem scary, you really should be re-thinking your career goals.

1. A Nightmare On Elm Street (Warner Brothers/New Line, 3,332 Theaters, 95 Minutes, Rated R): The original Nightmare on Elm Street was a step above the typical teen slasher films of the 1980s. It had a great back story–a child killer is burned alive by the neighborhood parents only to come back and kill their kids in their dreams. It had themes–vengeance, revenge, Children paying for the crimes of their parents. And it had a lot of psychological twists and gruesome, yet imaginative deaths.

The original is considered a classic of its genre. So much so, that a remake seems superfluous. But they are remaking every horror movie of note from the last 30 plus years, and they would have to get around to this one eventually. So why not now.

This version has one major improvement over the original–the guy playing Freddy. Robert Englund was awesome as the creepy and campy clawed killer, but how many Oscar nominations did he have? One less than the current Freddy, Jackie Earle Haley, who is enjoying another chance to employ his Rorschach voice in his current role.

2. Furry Vengeance (Summit Entertainment, 2,997 Theaters, 92 Minutes, Rated PG): If Brendan Fraser’s career was in Nightmare on Elm Street, stay with me here, I know it sounds weird, but stay with me, if his career was being hunted by Freddy, when it came time for the big kill scene, this film would unspool.

Seriously, this films has a 0% fresh over at Rotten Tomatoes.  Granted, only 21 reviews are in, because the studio refused to screen it for critics (BAD SIGN!!!! BAD SIGN!!!), but no one have it a thumbs up. Lets see if it gets any positive reviews before the weekend is up.

Gawd, this film looks positively awful. Fraser plays a real estate who finds himself up against a cadre of woodland creatures when he wants to develop their habitat. Nut shots, peeing in the mouth and skunk sprays ensue. But I’d wager not much hilarity.

This film supposedly passed through Steve Ccarell and Jeremy Piven’s hands before it landed at Fraser’s. Those men should send a nice gift basket to their agents. And Fraser should fire his. 

David Ayer has been picked by Twentieth Century Fox to write and direct a remake of the 1985 Arnold Schwarzenegger action flick Commando.

If you’re wondering why they want to remake what many consider a minor action classic, Deadline reports that Ayer, a former Navy man, will bring “real-world spin on this original premise” and that his “protagonist will be less brawny, but more skilled in covert tactics and weaponry.” Considering that much the original film’s appeal was its slightly goofy tone, which would dance up to the boarder of self-parody before moving back, the idea of a more real-world spin on the material sounds counter-intuitive to me.

Helen Mirren will be cleaning up after Russell Brand in the upcoming remake of the 1981 comedy Arthur. Mirren will be playing the part of Hobson, the long-suffering servant of Brand’s spoiled, drunken titular character. In the original role, the character was played by veteran British actor Sir John Gielgud, who won a Best Supporting Actor  Academy Award for his work in the film.

The gender-switch is interesting idea obviously changing the original’s father-son relationship between Hobson and Arthur to a mother-son one. This is continued in to the script where it is now Arthur’s mother who controls his finances and not his father as in the original. Of course, it remains to be seen if this is a good idea or not.

Interestingly, this is not the only gender-swapping role that Mirren is currently signed for. She will be playing Prospera, a female version of Prospero in director Julie Taymor’s upcoming adaptation of Shakespeare’s The Tempest.

Sad news for those folks out there who liked Platinum Dunes’ 2009 remake of Friday The 13th and were forward to a sequel- It’s not happening.

Responding to a question about the sequel’s development status on Twitter yesterday, producer Bradley Fuller declared “it is dead- not happening.”

Previously, the studio had been fast-tracking a sequel which would have been shot in 3D and transplanted killer Jason Voorhees from tranquil Crystal Lake to a wintery locale where he would supposedly terrorize snowboarders and skiers. The studio and distributor Warner Brothers were hoping to have the film in theaters this August, on the 13th of course.

This seems an odd move for the studio, considering that the film made over $91 million at the box office worldwide against its modest budget of $19 million. With such a clear hit on their hands, it seems like a no-brainer to get a follow-up into theaters as soon as possible. Unfortunately, no one has said what has happened behind the scenes to have stopped a surefire money maker dead in its tracks.

Although I think that Chris Rock is one of the most talented stand-up comics working today, I have not been much of a fan of either his film acting or screenwriting work. So it is with great trepidation that I greet the announcement that Rock will be taking over screenwriting duties from no less than David Mamet on director Mile Nichol’s planned remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 thriller High And Low.

Rock made the announcement to Black Voices while out promoting the upcoming release of Death At A Funeral, ironically a remake itself of director Frank Oz’s 2007 comedy. The story focuses on a business man whose son is kidnapped. But while he prepares the ransom, he learns that his son is safe and it was his chauffeur’s child who was mistakenly snatched, leaving him in the moral quandary of helping his employee or using the cash for a buyout that will save his business.

Even if I liked the quality of Rock’s writing output, I would have to question why he was chosen for the assignment. He previous scripted films have all been comedies- Down To Earth, Head Of State and I Think I Love My Wife. Granted Down To Earth and I Think I Love My Wife were both remakes (of Heaven Can Wait and Eric Rohmer’s L’Amour L’Après-Midi respectively), but nothing on his resume really speaks to him having any previous experience with the material. I’m hoping that Rock had one incredible pitch that landed him the job.

I’m rooting for Anna Faris. She is that rare combination of sexy and funny, but she hasn’t had much luck in picking material that showcases both aspects equally. (The House Bunny could have, if it was a better script.) Hopefully, becoming attached to a remake of the classic 1980 Goldie Hawn comedy Private Benjamin will yield a project to do so. New Line is currently developing the new version and is in negotiations with scripter Amy Talkington, currently working on a remake of another 80s classic, Valley Girl,  to write the film.

Although the story of a woman who enlists in the Army following the death of her new husband not knowing what she was getting into is remembered as Hawn’s best film, it won three Academy Award nominations for Hawn, supporting actress Eileen Brennan and original screenplay (Nancy Meyers, Charles Shyer and Harvey Miller). Although the remake will be set in contemporary times, it reportedly will concentrate on the fish-out-of-water elements rather than poking fun of the military.

Via Hollywood Reporter.