I have a term for these kinds of flicks, "parts movies." I'm a big fan of "lateral thinking through obsolete technology," so I take that approach to parts movies, anything that works or interests me, I make a note of (as well as try to figure out WHY I like it, otherwise it's no use). Anything bad, I start to play with and wonder how I could make it work better. Oftentimes, I'll experiment by replacing the weakness of one movie with a strong part from another movie ("what if THIS character was here instead?"). The trick is to keep your influences different enough do you're not just cooking up something derivative. It's like movie matchmaking, which is so much fun. I think this is what Mark Millar does, look at Kingsman: it's La Femme Nikita meets The UK Avengers meets [an update of] Dr No. Superior is "Superman Meets Big" (with some Last Action Hero in there as well, I suppose), the original Wanted was "Clockwork Orange in a Superhero world with a gangster rap attitude (the lead character is modeled after Eminem). Anyway, movies that SHOULD be remade... without wanting to spoil some stuff I've got simmering, let me throw out a few examples... * Bitter Script Reader threw out the idea ages ago for a female-centric remake of "Ty Soldiers," with Chloe Moretz, Elle Fanning, and Shailene Woodley, and that's been in my mind ever since. So I thought it should get some mention. * In college I had a remix thought regarding this old movie called "The Last Starfighter," where I wondered "what if you were recruited by the bad guys? You wouldn't know. How long would it take you to figure that out? And what could you do about it?" * Another movie that's been stuck in my head is one everyone my age saw called "Flight Of The Navigator," I haven't been able to crack it because the first half is kind of scary with the kid being kept like a prisoner at NASA and the second half is a fun spaceship adventure that, even before the age of Google Maps and GPS, should realistically only take about four minutes max, that at the end there wasn't even any point in taking. The one thing everyone remembers from that movie is the CGI spaceship that talks like Pee-Wee Herman. * After seeing the Waterworld show at Universal Studios, I kept thinking that flick was due for a fun remake. Now the pitch is easy: "Mad Max Fury Road on boats." * I always thought "The Dream Team" was due for a remake, get Bradley Cooper for Michael Keaton, Alan Tudyk for Christopher Lloyd, Eddie Izzard for Peter Boyle's nudist character, maybe Jonah Hill for Stephen Furst's character, Mary Elizabeth Winstead as Riley so the writers will be pressed to flesh that part out... and give them a doctor they'd really rally around, who we'd miss when he goes. I kept thinking James Spader because of Boston Legal, I can easily imagine him really going to the bat for his patients, being a strong advocate for them That movie always sort of felt like it fizzled out about halfway through, I enjoy starting it but I rarely ever finish it. I think that's a good indicator of a parts movie. * There was a throwaway line in Nemesis where the Nemesis character mentions that his rich parents were part of an organization that would hunt homeless kids for sport. Holy cow, I wanna see THAT movie, get Saoirse Ronan trying to lead all these other kids to safety while these Barry Lyndon-looking psychos chase them with foxes through hedge mazes and things... R-rated Hunger Games. That's a huge idea and it's just thrown out there in the middle of this bigger backstory that all turns out to be a giant line.

Oh, there was a real recent one that might actually still be making the festival circuit, called "Sam." The basic premise (a magic curse turns a sleazy lothario into a woman) and the lead actress (Natalie Knepp) are great, but it feels like they filmed an incomplete first draft written by someone who's never done a screenplay before. There's so much premise and potential there that's wasted. I literally spent the whole movie asking myself "really?" Done right, the movie could really be a classic, but the "finished" product just won't play to a general audience because it's such a mess. And maybe this is premature, but the upcoming reboot/remake/whatever of Vacation... the one thing I loved about all of those old National Lampoon flicks is that, outside of the crazy endings, they seemed to be made up of real horror stories and urban legends that were just mined for comic potential and string together into a story. I would love to write a script like that. So that's an execution in search of a premise.

Good stuff, Chris. Why don't you pull a Wilder? Take a concept from one these, give it a fresh spin, and make it your own? Write the script. Sell it for a million bucks. Thank me when you win an Oscar! Simple plan, right?

Actually, all these are ones I couldn't figure out yet, which is why I had no problem posting them, sending them out into the ether. I keep a nice, hefty (and, most importantly, ORGANIZED) Scrivener of parts waiting for their perfect match. The trick is finding a nice counter-concept to bring out the flavor and give the whole thing some direction. For example, way back when, one project I was working on was kind of a mix of Goonies, Explorers, and Flight Of The Navigator, and I liked elements of it, but it was weak and derivative because it didn't have an influence that wasn't in that vein. And of course, the counter-concept is the hardest to find because you don't know what it will be until you see it. For example, I have this one character who was basically just a run-of-the-mill high school mean girl cliche until I was watching Boston Legal and thought "she's William Shatner in Megan Fox's body" and it clicked, that became my guide for how to write her and make that character work.