8. Gremlins
The Original: Joe Dante's sublimely scary (and funny) creature classic depicts a sleepy town overrun by mayhem-causing monsters called Gremlins, and the cute, fluffy member of their species who inadvertently caused the whole thing to come about. It spawned a brilliantly funny sequel, which satirised much of what went on in the first film, as well as pop-culture in general.
How To Make It Not Suck: It absolutely must not overuse CGI. Dante's use of puppetry is one of the reasons that these movies have aged as well as they have; CGI that might have been state-of-the-art at the time would look terrible by today's standards, whereas the organic appeal of the puppetry will last a lifetime. While CGI is obviously easier and probably even cheaper nowadays, the reboot needs to use CGI to
enhance puppetry rather than overwhelm it.