20 Most Hated Film Remakes & Reboots In Movie History
1. The Pink Panther (2006)
Remake? Reboot? It’s unclear. The original series of movies starring Peter Sellars as the genial buffoon Inspector Clouseau lasted for six movies between 1963 and 1982: he was about to begin production on a seventh when he died: Trail Of The Pink Panther, which (utterly bizarrely) completed production using archive footage of the actor in the role.
Two more sequels would be greenlit without Sellars before the Pink Panther franchise was quietly retired in the early nineties… only to be resurrected just over a decade later with comedy legend Steve Martin in the role of Clouseau. Shawn Levy’s The Pink Panther (2006) was an entirely new movie focusing on attempts to steal the titular diamond… and good god, it stunk on ice.
With an anaemic script, a completely miscast Chief Inspector Dreyfus, Clouseau’s boss and nemesis (Kevin Kline is a wonderful comic actor, but this role needs to be played completely straight and the old ham can’t help winking to the audience), and the genius auteur behind the Cheaper By The Dozen series of cinematic turds, The Pink Panther wasted the huge opportunity to resurrect the series in a way which wouldn’t disrespect Sellars, one of the funniest men in history.
Steve Martin tries his hardest to work with what he has, but rather than provide a brief respite from all the mediocre crap happening around him, his committed performance only reminds you of how good this film could have been if more care had been taken with the script and choosing a director worth a f*ck.
Proving that God hates us all, the film was a surprise success, enough to greenlight a sequel in 2009 imaginatively titled The Pink Panther 2. Incredibly, it was worse than the first one.