

Future Remakes And Reboots That Will Blow Everyone Away

If it seems like every major movie these days is a prequel, sequel, remake, or reboot...well, that's because it probably is. Big-budgeted original films are hard to come by in Hollywood, and when they do, they don't always become box office hits. That's why studios and filmmakers tend to turn to proven ideas and remake them, albeit tweaking them slightly. It's a natural part of the industry, and it isn't stopping anytime soon. But there's still hope. Some remakes and reboots just might be worth your time—or, dare we say, blow you away.


Ever since Dean Devlin and Roland Emmerich brought Stargate to life in the late '90s, the franchise has been a central part of the sci-fi community. The movie inspired a long-running TV series, which itself spawned a few spinoffs. But with the series concluded, Devlin and Emmerich have taken it upon themselves to bring it back. In 2013, Emmerich announced he and Devlin had partnered with MGM and Warner Bros. to produce a new, rebooted Stargate trilogy, with Nicolas Wright and James A. Woods writing the script. Unfortunately, in a recent interview, Devlin seemed skeptical about the project moving forward at all. But don't give up hope yet—Devlin and Emmerich's projects always fall through before eventually moving forward.


The Terminator franchise is a beloved sci-fi classic, but there's no denying it's fallen on hard times recently. Since the release of Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines in 2003, the series has failed to achieve the same success enjoyed by the first two films. That trend continued when the Halcyon Company attempted to kickstart a new trilogy in 2009, beginning with Terminator Salvation. Due to the company's bankruptcy later that year, the franchise's rights were auctioned off, and the movie's sequel was trapped in limbo.

Fast forward six years. Paramount, along with Skydance Productions, attempted to reboot the franchise with Alan Taylor's Terminator: Genisys in 2015, featuring the return of Arnold Schwarzenegger's T-800. Unfortunately, that too failed to capture the audience's attention. Now, James Cameron has announced plans to return to the franchise he created in 1984 with a new reboot. This time, however, Cameron will be shepherding the installment, with Deadpool's Tim Miller in early talks to direct. There's not much information to go on at this time—other than the franchise rights reverting to Cameron in 2019, which means he'll be able to do with the series whatever he pleases. This can only be a good thing.


In 1971, MGM released a film adaptation of Ernest Tidyman's detective novel Shaft, starring Richard Roundtree as the eponymous character. It was successful enough to spawn two sequels, Shaft's Big Score and Shaft in Africa. In 2000, Paramount remade the original with John Singleton directing and Samuel L. Jackson starring in the leading role—and now, New Line Cinema is looking to do the same. The new film has Black-ish creator Kenya Barris and The Goldbergs producer Alex Barnow writing the script, with Ride Along director Tim Story at the helm. Hiring comedy writers and directors may concern some fans of the novel and movies, but producer John Davis says that while the movie will have its lighter moments, it won't be a comedy.


Stephen King novels are always ripe for the big and small screens. Case in point: his classic It was made into a two-part miniseries that aired on ABC in 1990, starring Tim Curry as the monstrous Pennywise the Clown. Eager to offer a scarier, bigger-budget adaptation, Hollywood filmmakers have attempted to bring the novel to life on the big screen for years. Beasts of No Nation director Cary Fukunaga led the charge for several years before dropping the project in 2015 following budgetary concerns with New Line Cinema. Now, Mama director Andrés Muschietti has taken up directing duties, with Bill Skarsgård playing the creature. Interestingly, producer Dan Lin likens the remake to Netflix's Stranger Things, saying, "It's very much an homage to '80s movies, whether it's classic Stephen King or even Spielberg. Think about Stand by Me as far as the bonding amongst the kids. But there is a really scary element in Pennywise."

Flash Gordon

You'd be hard pressed to find someone who hasn't at least heard the name Flash Gordon. The space opera hero debuted in the '30s and was a prominent comic strip character for decades. He even managed to get a handful of films and TV shows. Syfy recently tried their hand at a live-action Flash Gordon series, though it wasn't able to make it past the first season. Although that didn't take, 20th Century Fox hopes their upcoming movie will find a bigger audience. Rumor is Matthew Vaughn will direct the film, based on a script by J.D. Payne and Patrick McKay, which Mark Protosevich is currently rewriting. This adaptation has been in development since 2010, so there's no telling if or when it'll actually arrive, but the character definitely has long-running appeal.

The Mummy (and the rest of Universal's monster universe)

Shared universes are the big thing in Hollywood these days, and Universal Pictures is the latest studio to get in the game. Instead of turning to the comics for inspiration, they're building a shared monster universe, centering on the studio's iconic movie monsters of old—and it all begins with Alex Kurtzman's The Mummy, starring Tom Cruise as Tyler Colt, Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll, and Sofia Boutella as Princess Ahmanet.

The studio will follow The Mummy with several other monster films. Screenwriter David Koepp is working on Bride of Frankenstein, with Javier Bardem playing Frankenstein's monster. Ed Solomon is writing the script for Invisible Man, with Johnny Depp starring. David Callaham is rewriting Wolf Man, with Dwayne Johnson reportedly being eyed for the title role. Jon Spaihts and Eric Heisserer are writing the script for Van Helsing, which will be in the vein of Mad Max. And Jeff Pinkner is prepping the screenplay for Creature from the Black Lagoon, potentially starring Scarlett Johansson.

Disney's live-action remakes

After seeing enormous success with Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland in 2010, Disney commissioned more live-action remakes based (mostly) on their animated classics. Though some have faltered, overall, the initiative has worked well in Disney's favor—which means they'll continue. Bill Condon's Beauty and the Beast racked up record-breaking grosses in March 2017 with a live-action take on the story starring Emma Watson as Belle, Dan Stevens as Beast, and Luke Evans as Gaston.

Next, Jon Favreau will try to build on his success with The Jungle Book by remaking The Lion King. After that, Disney's lined up Mulan, Aladdin, Cruella, Dumbo, Genies, Peter Pan, Pinocchio, Tink, The Little Mermaid, and a lot more, all in live-action—and this is all on top of all the other movies Disney has in the pipeline. We're as cynical about remakes as the next film fan, but that's undeniably impressive.

The Crow

An argument can be made about superhero movies oversaturating the market, but the fact is, superheroes don't make up the entire comic book industry. Several non-superhero comic book movies have done remarkably well over the years—including Alex Proyas' The Crow, starring Brandon Lee as the eponymous character. For years, Hollywood has tried to remake The Crow to no avail. However, that may all be about to change: Jason Momoa boarded the film in 2016, which Corin Hardy will be directing. But with the remake having moved from Relativity Media to Davis Films and renamed The Crow Reborn, there's uncertainty as to whether Momoa and Hardy will remain on board. We'll know soon: the film is finally scheduled to begin production in 2017.

Escape from New York

Interesting sci-fi, futuristic concepts aren't easy to come by, and John Carpenter's Escape from New York is certainly one that stands out. Set in a then-dystopian future, the film follows Kurt Russell's Snake Plissken, tasked with finding the President of the United States after Air Force One crash-lands in Manhattan—which the government has turned into an enormous maximum security prison. The film may be old, but the concept is still intriguing, and Warner Bros. has spent years pursuing fruitless attempts to put together a remake. Producer Joel Silver's the latest to take a crack at it, and he wants to not only remake the film but turn it into a trilogy that's reportedly in the vein of Rise of the Planet of the Apes and inspired by Batman: Arkham Knight.


Remaking a movie that flopped upon its initial release may not sound like a very good idea, but if the film became a cult hit later on, then perhaps the studio has something to work with—and that's what Summit Entertainment is hoping for with their upcoming Highlander reboot. The film has been stuck in development hell since the studio announced the project in 2009, with numerous actors and directors coming and going, but things seem to be finally moving along. Iron Man scribes Art Marcum and Matt Holloway have written the script, and John Wick co-director Chad Stahelski will be directing. Dave Bautista reportedly joined the project as the Kurgan, and according to rumor, Tom Hardy is the frontrunner for the lead role of Connor MacLeod—though there hasn't been any news on that front since September 2015.

The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen

In 2003, 20th Century Fox released a steampunk film adaptation of Alan Moore and Kevin O'Neill's comic book series The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, which sees a group of extraordinary individuals—including Alan Quartermain, Captain Nemo, Tom Sawyer, Dorian Gray, and Dr. Jekyll, among others—come together in the Victorian Era to battle evil. Critics didn't like the film very much, and it's now notorious for being Sean Connery's last onscreen appearance. Still, the comic has big-screen potential, and the studio has been looking into rebooting it, first exploring the idea of a TV series before settling on a new film. This time, according to producer John Davis, the story will be female-centric—a twist that's undeniably interesting, despite it contradicting the source material.

Ocean's Eight

After remaking Lewis Milestone's Ocean's Eleven, Steven Soderbergh followed up with two more successful installments—but the cast and crew opted not to make a fourth film due to Bernie Mac's untimely death. Instead of another sequel, Warner Bros. has decided to reboot the series featuring an all-female cast with Sandra Bullock leading the charge. Directed by Gary Ross, Ocean's Eight will be produced by Soderbergh and George Clooney and will star Sandra Bullock, Cate Blanchett, Helena Bonham Carter, Anne Hathaway, Dakota Fanning, Rihanna, Sarah Paulson, and Mindy Kaling, with Matt Damon set to reprise his role from the original Ocean's trilogy as Linus Caldwell. The film's scheduled to arrive in June 2018.

Tomb Raider

Aside from the Resident Evil movies, Tomb Raider is likely the most successful video game movie franchise ever made, and that's thanks to the two Angelina Jolie films from the early 2000s. Now, along with a rebooted video game series, Warner Bros. is looking to reboot Tomb Raider on the big screen. Alicia Vikander will play Lara Croft in the new version, with Walton Goggins as the villain and Daniel Wu as ship Captain Lu Ren. As Goggins puts it, the film will be like "Raiders of the Lost Ark meets a genre version of the Joseph Conrad novel Victory: An Island Tale." Norwegian director Roar Uthaug is helming the project, based on a script by Geneva Robertson-Dworet. Though not much is known about the story, we do know it will closely follow the new Square Enix video games, which find a young Lara Croft on a quest to find her father.