David Cronenberg is in talks with Fox Studios over plans to “reboot” the 1986 horror classic The Fly.
Starring Jeff Goldblum and Geena Davis, The Fly was a “huge hit,” according to the Risky Business Blog, bringing in $40 million and earning a 1987 Oscar for Best Makeup. Now, in keeping with the recent Hollywood trend of remaking everything in sight, Cronenberg has reversed his past stance against having another go at the film and is now negotiating a deal with Fox to write and possibly direct a reboot.
I hate the word “reboot.” You know why? Because in film-making terms it’s essentially the same as a “re-imagining,” and we’ve already been down that road; it’s nothing more than a five-syllable excuse for the creatively barren wasteland the Hollywood movie system has become. You can’t turn around these days without being pasted in the face by a remake of some not-all-that-old movie, chewed up and puked out onto audiences like a $12 breakfast in bed delivered by a well-financed but remarkably untalented mama bird.
Of course, nobody’s going to accuse David Cronenberg of not having talent and that’s the one upside to all this: I can’t think of anyone I’d rather see directing a remake of one of his best-known films than Cronenberg himself. It’s also a bit disingenuous to rail against a remake when the 1986 release was itself an update of the 1958 Vincent Price vehicle of the same name. Fair is fair, I suppose.
