Horrible Movies That Need A Remake

Wild Wild West is the poster child for blockbusters gone bad. It's a movie so wretched not even Will Smith — fresh off Independence Day and Men In Black — could save it. On paper, though, it sounds like a winner. Start with Will Smith, whose unique talents as both a comedian and action star created the ultimate blockbuster-making formula. Pair him with Academy Award-winning thespian and comedian Kevin Kline. Put them in a sci-fi western based on a popular TV show. Throw in Salma Hayek, Kenneth Branagh, and the prerequisite Will Smith tie-in rap song, and you should have a surefire 1990s hit. 

So what went wrong? Well, Kline wanted to be funny instead of playing it straight, killing the key ingredient behind Smith's blockbuster chemistry with Tommy Lee Jones. The sci-fi/western/steampunk mishmash would have pushed audiences' patience even in the best of circumstances. And, of course, the giant mechanical spider. But beyond that, the movie is an unfunny, unexciting mess that earned a 17% Tomatometer score and only $220 million worldwide on a $170 million budget. Why do we want a remake? Because a version of Wild Wild West with a touch more grounding could be amazing. Imagine Chris Pratt doing his thing as James West and Jason Bateman doing his driest deadpan as Artemus Gordon, directed by Guillermo del Toro. It could work...just skip the giant robot spider, please.

Before the McConaissance and Batman Begins transformed their respective careers, Matthew McConaughey and Christian Bale made Reign of Fire. Released in 2002 and set in 2020, Reign of Fire is a post-apocalyptic, sci-fi/fantasy action flick in which London is ruled by flying, flame-breathing dragons right out of a medieval fairy tale. We know what you're thinking: Holy smokes, that sounds awesome! And we agree. In an insane, kitschy kinda way, Reign of Fire was a ridiculous delight. But despite Bale's earnestness and McConaughey's scene-stealing performance as the zany Denton Van Zan, Reign of Fire only managed a 42% Tomatometer score and $82 million worldwide, which even the film's impressively modest $60 million budget couldn't justify. 

What happened? Well, despite being distributed by Disney (yes, you read that right — there's even a Reign of Fire ride at Disneyland Paris), Reign of Fire was released on July 12, 2002. A high-concept story that's not based on a popular IP needs time to breathe, which the feast-or-famine opening weekend battleground of summer movie season simply doesn't allow. Factor in some so-so reviews and Reign of Fire  quickly went up in flames. However, a Netflix or HBO series about rival clans battling fire-breathing behemoths and each other in a post-apocalyptic nightmare world still sounds incredible. Give it time to build an audience, and Reign of Fire could reign over any streaming service.

Waterworld gets a bad rap as Kevin Costner's biggest mistake, but it can't hold a candle to The Postman, Costner's return to the director's chair after winning two Academy Awards for Dances With Wolves. First off, he stars as the film's hero and savior in a grandiose bit of self-mythologizing that would make the Greek gods blush. Second, it is nearly three hours long. Third, it made Tom Petty — rock icon Tom Petty! — look silly. So yeah, it's really bad, and deserves every bit of its 8% Tomatometer score and $17 million worldwide on an $80 million budget. 

So why on Earth are we asking for a remake? Because the underlying story remains strong. Based on David Brin's science fiction novel from 1985, The Postman is set in a post-apocalyptic American wasteland years after a civilization-destroying war. What's left of humanity is at odds, until a drifter who goes by "Shakespeare" discovers an abandoned U.S. post office and begins the slow process of restoring civil society through mail. It's a strong premise with an inspirational hook, broad enough to entice a variety of directors. None of the 1997 film's flaws are inherent to the story: There's no reason The Postman couldn't work today, especially given modern audience's interest in similarly post-apocalyptic stories like The Walking Dead and Max Mad: Fury Road. As long as it's not another Kevin Costner vanity project, The Postman could absolutely succeed on its second try.

What happens when Michael Bay attempts to direct a high-concept sci-fi saga? You get 2005's The Island. Set in 2019, The Island takes place in a world where clones are created to supply the wealthy with organs and pregnancy surrogates. Starring Ewan McGregor and Scarlett Johansson, the film had all of the makings of a thought-provoking glimpse into a bio-engineered future. After all, similar films like Gattaca and have proven their ability to build cult followings, even when they haven't set box office records.

In Michael Bay's hands, this film did neither. Sure, Bay dominates with wisecracking Will Smith and giant space robots, but give him somewhat complex material and you get The Island's 40% Tomatometer rating (a standard Bay score) and $162 million worldwide box office on a $126 million budget (a not-so-standard Bay box office take). It was Bay's first bomb after 10 years of blockbusters, and didn't do McGregor or Johansson any favors either. But imagine this story in the hands of Steven Spielberg and Tom Cruise in the vein of Minority Report, Rian Johnson in Looper mode, or Bong Joon Ho in the style of Snowpiercer. Action movies can have big ideas, just not with Michael Bay at the helm, and moviegoers deserve another trip to The Island.

When we say the Avengers deserve another chance, we're not talking about "Earth's mightiest heroes," who need absolutely no help at the box office. We're referring to The Avengers, the mod-tastic British spy show from the early 1960s about eccentric secret agent John Steed and his assortment of female partners. Think Doctor Who, but with James Bond instead of an extraterrestrial Time Lord. 

The Avengers TV show has earned a loyal cult following in the nearly 60 years since its release. Alas, that audience wasn't enough to save the big screen adaptation from being one of the biggest busts of summer 1998, a season that also included Roland Emmerich's disappointing Godzilla. Despite featuring Ralph Fiennes, Uma Thurman and Sean Connery, The Avengers earned a rotten 6% Tomatometer score. Audiences were even more unkind, tanking the turkey with a $23 million worldwide gross on a $60 million budget. What went wrong? Well, if you're one of the 10 people who saw The Avengers, you know it's a terrible action movie with no wit or charm. But imagine The Avengers done in the vein of The Kingsman series: action-packed, with a sly smirk that lets audiences know the movie is in on the joke. Shane Black is supposedly rebooting it, so we're hoping for the best.  

Oscar bait performances are a high risk, high reward proposition. For every actor who reaps accolades, several others earn disdain. Enter John Travolta as John Gotti in 2018's abysmal Gotti, a truly horrible movie. Just how bad is it? Gaze upon Gotti's 0% Tomatometer score and $6 million worldwide gross. 

So much is wrong here. John Travolta doesn't play John Gotti so much as he does an SNL impersonation of John Travolta playing John Gotti, theatrically chewing on every syllable and emphasizing every scowl like an amateur playing to the blue hairs in the back row. But it's not just Travolta who made Gotti one of the worst movies of the decade – the entire production is tonally confused and utterly convoluted. Turns out "Teflon Don" isn't invulnerable on big screen, as 1996's Gotti starring Armand Assante wasn't much better. Some might argue that a movie based on Gotti simply isn't a winning proposition at this point, but we still feel like the legendary leader of the Gambino crime family deserves a great film. Perhaps it should be a pseudo-biopic, like Howard Hawks' original Scarface was for Al Capone, or maybe Gotti could be a background character, like Robert De Niro's Capone in The Untouchables. Anything would be better than the big screen attempts we've gotten so far.

Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever is the worst reviewed movie on Rotten Tomatoes ever. Not only did Ecks vs. Sever earn a 0% Tomatometer score, it brought in a flimsy $20 million worldwide gross on a $70 million budget. That's a career killer, and its stars Antonio Banderas and Lucy Liu probably just wish we'd forget all about it. Maybe that would be for the best. However, the problem with Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever isn't the underlying story — it's everything else. 

The film is just one critical misstep after another, like watching a theoretically decent football team make so many mistakes they wind up losing 78-0. The film is about a FBI agent and a rogue DIA agent assigned to take each other out, who discover a larger enemy at work as they each search for a deadly new weapon. That's a decent enough foundation to build an action flick on, right? Too bad Ballistic: Ecks vs. Sever decides to muddy this simple premise with so many ridiculous "twists" it would have Game of Thrones show-runners D.B. Weiss and David Benioff crying foul. If this story goes back to basics — two morally upright government agents hunting each other under false premises — it could be a white-knuckle thriller. And hey, at the very least, it certainly couldn't do any worse than its infamous predecessor.