10 Upcoming Movie Remakes You Should Be More Annoyed About Than Ghostbusters

Mere weeks after Ben-Hur we get The Magnificent Seven. Like Ben-Hur this is actually a remake of a remake, so any strong reaction is going to have to deal with the same hypocrisy, although there is a strong distinction between this and the 1960 classic; John Sturges took a Japanese Samurai epic and transferred it to the popular western genre. Antoine Fuqua's looks to be basically doing the same again, just with a big machine gun.

Maybe we're wrong and he's found new depths in the same idea that aren't in the trailer, but that same defence could be used for Ghostbusters (and widely isn't). What we're probably dealing with here is a generic modern mainstream western, with superficial stylings and some big names padding their bank accounts (this stars Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington, who are excellent, but not about for-the-money gigs). That's irritating in general, but when it's a remake it becomes offensive.

You only need to look at the way the film has been marketed to see the point of all this - the "Seven" is the focus, for no reason other than the big names it's assembled are the only interesting selling point.