Roberto Orci and Alex Kurtzman (Transformers 1 & 2, Star Trek, Cowboys & Aliens, a million other things) get tired if they’re not attached to twelve projects a month, and after booking re-write duties on Sony’s Amazing Spider-Man sequel† (that’s the sequel to the upcoming reboot, if you’re keeping score at home), they needed something else to keep busy. I get that. But this? This is ridiculous.
Universal said the first projects in the exclusive two-year deal with Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci and their K/O Paper Products banner will be remakes of studio library titles The Mummy alongside producer Sean Daniel and writer Jon Spaihts and Van Helsing with Tom Cruise attached. [Deadline]
Is there any movie fan in the world who would read that and think, “Oh boy, remakes of Van Helsing and The Mummy!“? What’s the point of even re-making those derivative, terrible movies? Name recognition? NO ONE F*CKING LIKED VAN HELSING! How can name recognition do anything but hurt that project? You’ve basically got derivative movies with negative name recognition, wouldn’t it just be easier to write new crappy vampire and mummy movies at that point? I mean, I understand the concept of trying to make money off your back catalog (sort of…), something you already own, but when they put out these press releases, are they really expecting people to be excited about it? It’d be like if a chef walked into the dining room and announced, “Today we’ve got pigeon shit meat balls and some stuff I pulled out of the grease trap. Now who’s hungry!”
Anyone who hears “Van Helsing remake starring Tom Cruise” and thinks anything nicer than “pigeon shit meatball” is either a Scientologist or getting paid by Universal.
†Here I might point out that firing the writer before his movie has even hit theaters doesn’t speak well of what Sony thinks about the movie.