Original Remake

A few months ago, my buddy Mick and I were having a phone conversation. He happened to be watching Catwoman at the time and remarked how he felt the film was sub par, to say the least. Discussing a Batman-related property jogged my memory of DC's plans to reboot that franchise shortly after Christopher Nolan's third Batman film is released. That item brought us to the subject of remakes in general.

Mick and I agreed that there's nothing inherently wrong with filming an updated version of an extant property. The problem is that Hollywood seems to have dispensed with all originality and creativity while endlessly rehashing ideas.

The two of us pooled our efforts to think of an existing movie that had had potential but failed to realize it for whatever reason. After kicking that particular peanut around for a while, we finally settled on the 1990 almost-classic Robot Jox.

The original movie had a lot going for it: tense Cold War intrigue, a script by veteran sci-fi author Joe Haldeman, and giant robot effects that hold up pretty well even today. The acknowledged reason for the film's lack of enduring success is the conflicting visions of Haldeman and director Stuart Gordon. of Reanimator fame. The writer wanted to make a hard science fiction movie accessible to kids, and the director wanted to make a kids' movie that would also appeal to adults. The end result was neither.

From there, Mick and I decided to take up the challenge of completing Haldeman and Gordon's failed opus. After countless hours of planning, exhaustive and largely unnecessary research, and weeks of writing, I am proud to announce that our script for a Robot Jox remake; aptly titled Robot Jocks, is well into its second draft.

Upon completion of the final screenplay, we hope to track down the current rights holder and pitch the script to them--out of a morbid desire to find out how they'll react, if nothing else.