Posted on Sep 2, 2009 at 1:37 am · by 4

‘Rocky Horror’ Remake On Hold… Thankfully

A brief note on io9 posits that MTV’s proposed remake of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” is on hold. There’s not a lot of details, other than their source saying that “it may take a while” to get back on track.

This might be a good time to go off on a rant about how the movie and television industries need to stop trying to remake every successful property from the last 30 years. Whether it’s a fond memory from Gen-X childhood, like “The A-Team,” or something that is a guilty pleasure cult classic, like “Rocky Horror,” the people making decisions in Hollywood and New York need to Just. Flippin’. Stop.

The “Rocky Horror” remake that MTV was working on was going to use the original screenplay by Richard O’Brien and Jim Sharman, but would have added more songs and, according to original / remake producer Lou Adler “been more accessible to a modern audience.”

Lou? Dude? The first film wasn’t accessible to audiences to being with. It’s a crap movie. I say this as someone who spent the better part of the decade going to, and performing in, “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Seriously, I can, to this day, quote every single line, and could probably perform each part. Male and female. It’s a crap movie. The reason it was so successful was not the movie itself, but the atmosphere of live casts, like the top-notch Los Bastardos in Fort Worth, and midnight shows.

I haven’t been to a live show in many years, because it simply won’t be the same. Not that it will be worse, but because I have amazing memories of the casts I was a part of in the ’80s and ’90s. Those memories don’t need to be replaced, or modernized, or even updated with new music. Neither does the film those memories came from.

This is one project I hope stays infinitely on the back burner. If you’re really hankering to see “Rocky Horror” done properly, go to the Ridgmar Movie Tavern on a Saturday night and “give yourself over to absolute pleasure.” If you find yourself saying, “this movie would be so much better if Miley Cyrus played Janet,” feel free to have someone hit you in the head with a piece of toast.

Devin Pike

Devin Pike remembers the Web when it was nothing but annoying animated GIFs as far as the eye can see. A film critic and entertainment reporter for over 30 years, Devin is the former Editor for Red Carpet Crash. Mostly, Devin hates talking about himself in the third person, because it makes him feel schizophrenic.

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  • AC Walker

    While I think it’s cute that you think the only reason for RHPS’ success is the live casts (which I guess would make you indirectly the reason for its success- nice little ego there), the fact is that RHPS is NOT, as you call it, “a crap movie.” It is a somewhat amateurishly staged-and-directed movie, but the source material is not at all crap. It has an awesome score, a clever premise, and a (largely) talented cast. The fact that it was an extremely successful stage show BEFORE it was a movie (long before the “audience participation” started) and has continued to be one years later, not to mention the fact that plenty of people own the DVD and soundtracks, also indicates that RHPS has more value than “it’s good because I perform with a local cast, and that makes me think I’m cool.”

    People certainly have the right to their own aesthetic judgments, but there’s nothing more obnoxious than an ostensible “fan” who insists on ironic detachment because he’s too cowardly to admit why he likes something.

  • http://www.redcarpetcrash.com Devin Pike

    While you’ve got a lot of great points on the appeal of “Rocky Horror,” AC, there are a couple of things you might have missed:

    1) Just because I said I feel it’s a “crap movie,” don’t think I love it any less. There are several movies I’d put in the same category – “The Last Starfighter,” “The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai Across The Eighth Dimension,” and “Dark Star,” among others. I wouldn’t know all of the songs by heart if I didn’t like them first. And, yes, the cast is stellar – Tim Curry, Susan Sarandon and Barry Bosworth didn’t get their start with “Rocky,” but they survived the flick. Leading me to…

    2) If you’re of the opinion that the movie would have been anything other than a footnote in film without the midnight showings, you’re kidding yourself. It opened in eight theaters, then was pulled, re-released on college campuses, and pulled again. Had the Waverly in New York not started the midnight screenings, and had Louis Farese not started yelling at the screen, we would regard “Rocky Horror” in the same vein as “Manos: The Hands Of Fate.” (While I refuse to even allow myself to think I had any part in that, as you imply, I damned sure credit Sal Piro and Shannon Bradley, the person who dragged me to my first “Rocky Horror” showing in 1984.) Instead, it’s considered the longest-running film in American cinema history, grossing over $135 million.

    So, just to be clear: I do love “Rocky Horror.” And my love for it means I want to protect its memory – which is why it doesn’t need to be remade.

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