Remake | featured news

...Top earnings over the weekend went to last week’s classic horror film reboot: Evil Dead, which made a tidy sum of $26 million. Next in line for revenues was G.I. Joe: Retaliation, which made another $21.1 million, for a total of $86.6 million so far.

Those pining for a remake of Flatliners, the 1990 movie starring Kiefer Sutherland, Kevin Bacon, Julia Roberts, and Oliver Platt, is closer to getting their wish. According to Bloody Disgusting, Sony has tapped the Danish director Niels Arden Oplev to direct the remake. No word on when the movie will begin shooting.

Who didn't see this coming after Clint Eastwood started talking to an imaginary Obama, by way of a chair, on stage at the Republican National Convention? Variety is reporting that Beyonce has “fallen out of” the somewhat highly anticipated “A Star is Born” remake which Mr. Eastwood is slated to direct. The PR line is that Bey has a lot going on and since no clear start date for filming had been set, figuring out her schedule for projects was becoming too complicated. See sentence one for the likelier explanation.

American Idol producer Nigel Lythgoe is to develop a remake of the 1980s musical TV series Fame. The original show, based on the Oscar-winning 1980 film, followed the students of the New York City High School for the Performing Arts. The new series will be set in the present day against the backdrop of a fixation with the world of celebrity.

According to Variety, MGM has chosen Nic Pizzolatto to write the screenplay for The Magnificent Seven remake that Tom Cruise is attached to star. It doesn't sound like Pizzolatto will work on the movie right away though since he's writing and producing True Detectives over at HBO. The series is directed by Cary Fukunaga and stars Matthew McConaughey and Woody Harrelson as detectives who are hunting a serial killer in the South.

Paramount’s remake tops Friday with $5.6 million; horror prequel “The Thing” off to so-so start with $3.2 mil, while the Steve Martin-Jack Black-Owen Wilson comedy “The Big Year” only grosses $1.2 mil.

On track for $15 mil bow; 'Real Steel,' 'Thing' duke it out for second -- "Footloose" is expected to take the No. 1 spot at the domestic B.O., based on early Friday figures. Box office observers expect the pic to bow with grosses north of $15 million. Pic has taken in nearly $1 million as of this afternoon.

This week at the movies, we've got Sunday shoes removal (Footloose, starring Kenny Wormald and Julianne Hough), an Antarctic abomination (The Thing, starring Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Joel Edgerton), and a bird watching competition (The Big Year, starring Jack Black and Owen Wilson). What do the critics have to say? Did the world really need a new Footloose? Apparently yes, say critics, who find this update of the 1984 musical smash an energetic, toe-tapping good time.

Isaiah Mustafa plays Detective Ray Goodson, the ex-fiance of Kate. Apparently they broke up when he discovered she was a dirty cop. Ray is working the same case as the Angels and he chides them for operating outside the law.

As Spike Lee's take on Old Boy moves towards production, Twitch reports that Rooney Mara is being eyed for the female lead. A remake of Park Chan-wook's Oldboy, the film focuses on a man named Joe (Dae-su Oh in the original) who is captured and imprisoned in a hotel room for over two decades (15 years in the original) with no understanding as to why. When he is suddenly released, he's told that he has just four days to determine the reason for his imprisonment.