The Witches remake.

[gaastra]

Witches remake planned for a big-screen release--going right to hbo max! Ouch!

https://deadline.com/2020/10/anne-hatha ... 234590081/

[Ben]

Yes, it’s THAT good!

[Daniel]

I remember the original being a little scary. Haven't seen it in ages.

[Ben]

Scarily bad, you mean?

I could never get into it. Just has this weird naffness to it for me.

[Daniel]

Pretty much. Part of the reason why I haven't botherd revisiting it.

[EricJ]

Trailer hit, and...they're black. Well, the kid and the straight-out-of-a-Tyler-Perry-movie grandma are, the witches aren't.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9nlhmJF5FNI

Sort of the standard playbook for "What to do with a franchise remake when you haven't the first clue why or how to exploit the generational childhood-title value twenty or thirty years later."
Just look how well it worked for Annie and The Karate Kid.

[Ben]

Where you been E? Trailer's been out over a week...no surprises here...

[EricJ]

Where you been E? Trailer's been out over a week...no surprises here...

"Why haven't I seen the trailer before now?", well, let's see:
- "Utterly uninterested"?
- "Can smell a desperate Warner title-pimp a mile away"?
- "Had no nostalgia for Nicholas Roeg's unfocused mess the first time"?
- "Gave up on Robert Zemeckis as a psychotic lunatic long before his Christmas Carol movie"?

...Or, maybe the fact that nobody else was talking about it. Think it's one of the first four, though.

[Ben]

Maybe it’s all five?

But still a bit weird to come in late and start trying to make a thing out of them being black. They just are in this version, and whatever anyone may think, there’s nothing inherently "wrong" with that.

The bigger thing is that I don’t think anyone was too excited about this even before it was shunted to HBOM. And that includes the Warner execs who, as with Artemis Foul, probably saw the writing on the wall. Rather than yank it from cinemas and have to wait a year for next Halloween, they’re trying to make a Thing of it by going the HBOM route, which will ironically bury any interest in it even further...!

Poor Bob Z. Should have taken that Flash movie...

[EricJ]

Maybe it’s all five?

But still a bit weird to come in late and start trying to make a thing out of them being black. They just are in this version, and whatever anyone may think, there’s nothing inherently "wrong" with that.

Not the racism, just the desperation to find the new hook to "distance" itself from the original--
"Either it's a girl, or black", or, in the case of Karate Kid, one of each.

The bigger thing is that I don’t think anyone was too excited about this even before it was shunted to HBOM. And that includes the Warner execs who, as with Artemis Foul, probably saw the writing on the wall. Rather than yank it from cinemas and have to wait a year for next Halloween, they’re trying to make a Thing of it by going the HBOM route, which will ironically bury any interest in it even further...!

Still, as it's going to be a long time before they can see wide release again--and talk of Wonder Woman going HBOM has been getting serious lately--hopefully we'll see a lot MORE of Warner's title-resurrection projects in search of the New Franchise being salvaged to streaming.
Their "Young Willy Wonka" movie is the Artemis Fowl of Warner, and that every-DC-villain-in-the-pot Suicide Squad reboot is the Mulan.

[Ben]

So who knew that The Witches would end up being so fun!?

We just ran that tonight and I was surprised as anyone at how much I enjoyed it, certainly tons more than the messy first take. The new setting (ironically still shot in England) didn’t really make or break anything, though it gave Octavia Spencer license to play the kindly, cosy grandma with a lovely dose of southern charm and warmth, like Miriam Margolies, but without one mention of race or overt acknowledgement of such, which is just as it should be. Yes, it was there, but of no consequence and even almost touched on humorously, among several good sequences including a couple of near-miss suspense moments that were genuinely edge of your seat, albeit briefly.

While Angelica Huston obviously had fun relishing her Grand Witch in the original, Anne Hathaway arguably takes it a step further, both being truly deranged with a bonkers accent and randomly comic affectations, and quite nastily scary at times — indeed, I’m not sure this is a film for very young kids. That said, the wild and fantastical appearance of the witches in the first film is missed here, despite their alternative disfigurements, but it’s closer to the book and, as usual, Bob Zemeckis' regular composer Alan Silvestri’s music carries it all along, full of bombast if a little too reminiscent of previous scores at times.

I saw this because Zemeckis remains one of my favorite directors, and I was glad that he continues his more hit than miss streak with this, after The Walk and Welcome To Marwen, both of which did pretty avant-garde things within a studio blockbuster. This is probably more accessible, and more family friendly, with any main faults down to Dahl's original story, which I always found slightly "angry" and less touched with whimsey than his other books, even those of the same time.

But in moving this away from a contemporary take and back to late 60s Alabama, it kind of lends it a slightly "non regular" feel, and the definite period setting provides an almost storybook framing that doesn’t come over like a Harry Potter rehash night have done if it had been set in England. The end credits make it clear that they needed to do something with it by Christmas, though it’s a shame that it didn’t get a big screen release as I think given the right exposure and discovery by audiences it could have been a nice little hit.

[Daniel]

Fun? Wow, whodathunk. Good to hear.

[corihollis]

"Why haven't I seen the trailer before now?", well, let's see:
- "Utterly uninterested"?
- "Can smell a desperate Warner title-pimp a mile away"?

When I read about the remake I thought I can smell a failure but you know after watching the trailer I've changed my mind. Kids might actually like it. Too bad they've made a comedy and completely overdid original spirit...