Why It's Awful: There really was a great movie waiting to come out inside of Chris Weitz's adaptation of Philip Pullman's Northern Lights, yet Weitz was ultimately manhandled by studio interference, leading to a homogenised, dull fantasy flick which heavily toned down the novel's anti-religious themes in order to appeal to a wider audience, and excised numerous crucial scenes in order to land a run-time under 2 hours. The Remake: This one's really simple. The filmmakers clearly had a fine handle on the technical aspects of the production, so just reinsert the controversial themes, and give it a suitable run-time of around 140-150 minutes to restore all the great character work. Taking a slight hit on the budget (which would undeniably put a dent in the visual effects) would certainly be worth it if a major Hollywood studio had the cojones to release a blockbuster movie bashing organised religion, but given how powerful religion is in the U.S., it's almost certainly never going to happen.
Stay at home dad who spends as much time teaching his kids the merits of Martin Scorsese as possible (against the missus' wishes).
General video game, TV and film nut. Occasional sports fan. Full time loon.
