Remake Machine: GILLIGAN'S ISLAND
REMAKE MACHINE is a new feature which will attempt to make some sense out of upcoming remakes from Hollywood, and offer suggestions as to how these remakes can succeed as films as well as financial endeavors. Sixties/seventies American television might be some of the goofiest performance art ever made. Children were being warped by the likes of H.R. Pufnstuf, while adults eagerly awaited schlock like My Favorite Martian or Mr. Ed. From this creative morass emerged a long-running show called Gilligan's Island, which involved seven people marooned on an island. Unlike Lost, Gilligan's Island had poor production values and chintzy, stagey island sets. What it did have, however, was an enjoyable cast and a dynamic core of characters that made the comedic show hum. Since Gilligan's Island was wildly popular in its day - and reruns are constant somewhere in the world - it doesn't surprise anyone that Warner Brothers is developing a big screen version of the show. According to SlashFilm, Brad Copeland has been hired to write the screenplay, which may not be good news since he wrote the abysmal Wild Hogs. So what can be done with Gilligan's Island to make it work? 1. Lose the slapstick. The show was full of over-the-top slapstick and some incredibly silly props that probably will not fly in today's culture. The only way inventions like phones and cars made out of coconuts will work onscreen is if there is a plausible explanation, scientific or otherwise. In the show, the explanation used was "the professor is really smart and made it somehow." Not good enough. 2. Recast the Howells. Easily the weakest characters on the show, the Howells were a snobbish rich couple that served almost no dramatic purpose aside from being slightly villainous from time to time. The characters were played by Jim Backus and Natalie Schafer while in their sixties, which made them a bit too old to be much use dramatically while surrounded by much younger people. I would make them a couple in their thirties or forties, fitter and more dynamic. I might also ramp up their villainy a bit, and give them some sort of redemption arc at the end.