BUTTERFLY REBOOT Coming From Original Co-Writer/Director Eric Bress

When discussing chaos theory, there is the standard saying that a butterfly flapping its wings could conceivable cause a tornado on the other side of the world thanks to a innumerable variables that are placed in motion. And this was the premise behind the 2004 science-fiction thriller The Butterfly Effect, in which Ashton Kutcher played a college student who discovered that he could send himself back in time to change things in his personal life. But he soon discovered that those changes results in wide-ranging and unforeseen consequences and the more he tries to fix things the more he complicates them.

Butterfly Effect co-writer and co-director Eric Bress could conceivably be ignoring the message of his own movie as he is embarking on a remaking of the film. Variety is reporting that Bress has been signed by FilmEngine and Benderspink to script a new version that is hoped will lead to a relaunch of the franchise. As of now, it does not appear as if his Butterfly Effect writing and directing collaborator J. Mackye Gruber is involved.

Although some derided the movie when it first came out as it was one of Kutcher’s first forays into more dramatic material, it proved popular enough to earn nearly $100 million at the box office and spawn two direct-to-video sequels. I would say that part of the film’s success could be that the public was already familiar with the idea of esoteric genre idea of time travel altering history thanks to the Back To The Future films and Butterfly Effect undoubtedly helped pave the way for further explorations of the idea in such places like Community.

So is a remake of The Butterfly Effect a good idea? I hope so. But then again, if it doesn’t turn out well, Bress can always just will himself to travel back in time and keep correcting his mistakes until the film is perfect.