Andy Morgan’s Screening Room

I was supposed to see a screening of “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix” for this week’s column, but I got tagged with the flu and instead spent the day and evening in a Nyquil-induced haze reading Gillian Flynn’s “Sharp Objects.” I also caught part of “Beastmaster” on the Sci-Fi channel and told my imaginary Nyquil-born friend the 80s sword-swinging flick was in need of a re-do. That got me thinking: What other movies would I like to see remade?

Tron

Most teens and young adults probably haven’t heard of this 1982 sci-fi movie starring Jeff Bridges (“Stick It”) and Bruce Boxleitner (“Babylon 5”), but chances are they’ve seen the Jay Maynard, aka “The Tron Guy,” on the web and been repulsed by his squirm-inducing camel toe. Either way, this film was cool looking in 1982 and would be even better with today’s CGI. And the story wouldn’t even need to change that much, since it was about computer hackers and programmers in 1982.

12 Angry Men

I realize this was remade for Showtime in 1997 by William Friedkin (“The Exorcist”), but give me a break - it also had Tony Danza in the cast. The original is great and Henry Fonda is a rock as Juror #8, but I say do this as an independent movie and get 12 of the best actors in Hollywood to assemble and update the script to make it more relevant today. Maybe given our country’s fear of terrorism, this could be a Muslim man wrongly implicated because of his religion and skin color. I’d start with Tom Hanks, Russell Crowe, Denzel Washington, Adrian Brody, Jack Nicholson, and William H. Macy and then fill the other six spots with veteran supporting actors like William Hurt, Paul Giamatti, Alec Baldwin, Ed Harris, Christopher Walken and Benicio del Toro. Now that would be the lineup.

Clash of the Titans

I downloaded this movie from XBOX Live in high definition and while it looked marvelous, I’d drifted off after Perseus (Harry Hamlin) had his stop-motion-animation action scene with a very clay-looking Medusa. I remember thinking this movie was scary as a kid and while this is a campy classic, it’s been more than 25 years and time for an update, complete with new CGI and a Hans Zimmer soundtrack.

The Star Wars Prequels

It’s been two years since Uncle George dropped “Revenge of the Sith” on moviegoers and then swore off making any more “Star Wars” movies (that is until his bank account runs dry), and in that time I’ve grown angry at Mr. Lucas. I loved Star Wars as a kid. “The Empire Strikes Back” is one of the best movies made in the history of making movies. With a chance to reignite the franchise and blanket a new generation with the awe and wonder of “A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away,” George dropped the ball and instead gave us Jar Jar Binks, midi-clorians and enough crappy dialogue and pointless storylines to permanently scar the Star Wars saga. All the surprise is gone from Star Wars and I can’t even get through Episode II “Attack of the Clones” without throwing things at my TV. I vote we try this again and hand over the script and directing tasks to someone with a sliver of creativity.

The Ten Commandments

Perhaps there is some unwritten rule in Hollywood that says you can’t remake anything by Cecil B. DeMille, because despite the epic quality of “The Ten Commandments,” Hollywood hasn’t touched this in a live-action film since Charlton Heston brought Moses into theaters in 1956. A quick search on IMDB.com shows an animated version “coming to theaters in 2007”, but a quick look at the cast has Elliot Gould doing the voice of God. Let me repeat that: Elliot Gould. How about we hand this over to Michael Bay (“Transformers”) and let him work his magic, or maybe Mel Gibson since he’s mastered the period (“Apocalypto”), religious (“The Passion”) and the epic (“Braveheart”) forms of filmmaking.