Chris Columbus doesn’t appear to be the biggest fan of remakes and reboots, especially when it comes to some of his own biggest movies. When speaking to journalist Jake Hamilton on Jake’s Takes, Columbus said that there is “no point” in making new versions of the Harry Potter series, and he doesn’t seem to be completely on board with the upcoming Home Alone reboot on Disney+ either. While there is a seemingly unstoppable need for Hollywood to chew up any movie more than a couple of decades old and spit out something that is often a vague, mushed rehash, Columbus does have a point that sometimes there is no reason for a movie to get the remake treatment.
Columbus was ultimately responsible for the entire Harry Potter franchise panning out on screen as it did, as he was the one who had a hand in casting the three lead wizards, and from his first movie, Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint would then play the parts of Harry, Hermione and Ron for the remainder of the series for over a decade. As the original movie comes up to its 20th anniversary, Columbus was asked in the interview if he thought the Harry Potter movies would and should be remade.
“I can’t answer the first… I don’t know,” Chris Columbus said. “In this version of Hollywood that we live in, everybody is remaking everything, and rebooting everything. I mean, there’s a Home Alone reboot coming out. What’s the point? The movie exists, let’s just live with the movie that existed. There’s no point in us remaking The Wizard of Oz, there’s no point in any of us remaking the classic films. Make something original, because we need more original material. So, no point.”
While Home Sweet Home Alone has already come under fire with the release of its trailer, getting blasted by many fans of the 1990 movie as a shot for shot remake with no new ideas, which suggests that once again Columbus’ comment of “What’s the point?” is spot on the money. Of course, Columbus was in the director’s chair on the original Macaulay Culkin movie, and while he certainly has nothing against a good franchise, having said that he would have loved to have directed more Harry Potter movies but dropped out due to them being so time consuming, sequels are clearly a different kettle of fish to remakes.
Chris Columbus has been behind some of the most popular movies of the last generation, and to further reiterate his sequel over reboot stance, he recently gave an update on the long requested Gremlins 3, which by the sound of it is still a very real possibility. However, again, Columbus is working on it as a sequel and not thinking of remaking the original 1984 classic. While there sometimes appears to be no new ideas in Hollywood, there also seems to be too much of an eagerness to use a well-known name to pull in cinema audiences, it is nice to know there is at least one director who is on a different page.
Source: movieweb.com