OK time for another round of “What if?…Wednesday, and this week I have been inspired by a couple of comments from last week where if you remember (and if you don’t where the heck were you!), we covered the re-making of “Jaws” and who would be cast in the lead roles and why this and a lot of other “classic” movies should never be re-made.
Well this time I thought we’d flip that on its head and discuss what films we think should be re-made, now I’m going to expand this idea and add television series that should be made into films too (as so many of the old classic series end up as films these days). This is 
also in part because the one I want to put forward is a classic series from my youth…”The Persuaders”.
For those of you who don’t remember The Persuaders it was a light hearted adventure series starring a couple of very well-known actors/stars, in the shape of Roger Moore and Tony Curtis as “Lord Brett Sinclair” and millionaire “Danny Wilde”, it’s actually still on TV in the UK on “The Sony Channel”. Now my suggestion is that it be re-made as a film but to drag it up to date the two leads are played rather than actors but instead by well-known actresses! (I know it’s radical isn’t it, I 
can’t believe nobody has thought of doing this to a well-known film or series before!) There for in my version “Lady Beth Sinclair” would be played by Hayley Atwell of “Agent Carter” fame and “Daniella Wilde” by “Deadpool’s girlfriend”, Morena Baccarin.
So what do you think? What would you re-make? (Charlies Angels with three men as the stars?), Where is Hollywood missing a trick and who would you cast in your dream re-make?
As always gentlemen the floor is now open to you…..
I’ll leave you with this video that was sent to me by my eldest. It made me smile, sorry if you’ve seen it before…
Cheers Roger.
Rantings from under the Wargames table 
Like your ideas for the Pretenders Roger, very cool. Can’t think of any film I’d like to see remade, as remakes tend to lose the charm of the original ( dreading the remake of Hellraiser !) but as for a TV series there’s 2, space 1999. which they had started to do but then went quiet called Space 2099, and the new eagle looked great, but the one I would most like to see would be Blake’s 7, Paul Darrow was trying to make this happen, before he passed away, not sure who I would like to see in the roles, need to think hard on that one
You have read my mind Dave! as they are two series I have always thought would be great if they were remade!
Blakes Seven would be marvellous with modern effects, a much better prospect that the modern Dr Who in my opinion, which I fell has lost it’s charm. Likewise Space 1999 too would work well with a makeover. Did you know that a lot of the models and sets for Space 1999 were made for the next series of UFO until Lou Grade pulled the plug on it and said he needed a series set in space to sell to the Americans?
Cheers Roger.
I did not know that Roger, great little insight !
I think the hardest part to cast would be Servalan as it needs the right level of sexy evil, but maybe Ryan Renolds for Vila
Interesting choice Dave, it is a tough thing to cast, but yes I could see Ryan as Villa, how about Suranne Jones (the actress who played Doctor Foster) or Pheobe Waller Bridge (Fleabag), neither of which I watched tbh, as Servalan?
I seen to remember Adam Rickets (of Coronation Street) was mentioned for a part in the failed re-make (thank god for small mercies eh!).
Cheers Roger.
Small mercies can help the sanity ! LOL
interesting options, but you got me thinking what about Eva Green from 33 rise of an empire, she certainly has the evil down, also how about Randy Orton from wwe for Avon, he can do sly cunning and out for his own as second nature
that should have read 300, stupid fingers ! LOL
I’ll have to look up Eva Green, but I really sad to say I do know who Randy Orton is!!
However if this was to be a British production, we would have to limit our choices to cast members of Coronation Street, EastEnders, Hollyoaks, Emmerdale etc.. sadly ;-( So Phil Michelle for Blake then?
Cheers Roger.
Trouble with TV series nowadays is that they either get cancelled due to poor television ratings/advertisement slot sales, or buried into the wee hours broadcast slots. Channel 4 is particularly fond of doing this. Start off with a new TV series at 9pm. Two weeks later its at 10pm. Next week it will have been buried, at the last minute, to 1am. This is fine if there’s a means to record said show, or its available on the channel’s Internet service, but we (us, our household) no longer have a Freeview recorder and Channel 4 has a tendency not to repeat certain shows on its 4OD Internet service. Just a personal peeve of mine. Its got to the point that I’m not watching new TV shows unless they’re on BBC or one of Channel 5’s associated channels – as they’ve good Internet service, should it be needed.
I’ll have to think about a TV show.
That is so true Roy! we have a hard drive in the back of the telly so we can record programs, as you say Channel 4 is one of the worst for not putting stuff on 4OD and if they do you HAVE to watch all the adverts (and there are more than when it was on the telly!!) so I’d rather record stuff so we can at least fast forward through them!
I also still have a VCR, but don’t tell anyone (I’m thought of as a bit of a dinosaur anyway!!).
Cheers Roger
If were talking only British actors, Eva Green is one thankfully, but Jason Statham for Blake ! LOL
Jason Statham does well, I picked him for Chief Brodie in “Jaws” last week! I guess he really is all things to all men! 😉
I’m enjoying these. Never heard of the Pursuaders though, I’ll have to ask dad about it hehe. I’d love to see a remake of the Benny Hill show but I can’t see that happening in this politically correct world haha. I was always quite partial to the show “Monkey” as a kid so that turned into a movie would be pretty cool. I’d also like to see the Vietnam war tv show from the 80s called “Tour Of Duty” turned into a movie. Tom Hardy as Sergeant Anderson.
IRO wrote…..
I’m enjoying these. Never heard of the Pursuaders though, I’ll have to ask dad about it hehe. I’d love to see a remake of the Benny Hill show but I can’t see that happening in this politically correct world haha. I was always quite partial to the show “Monkey” as a kid so that turned into a movie would be pretty cool. I’d also like to see the Vietnam war tv show from the 80s called “Tour Of Duty” turned into a movie. Tom Hardy as Sergeant Anderson.
Thanks IRO, not sure why your comment isn’t coming up, hopefully this will cure it. You really should check out the Persuaders I used to love it as a child, I’m surprised you haven’t seen it we get all the old TV crap from Australia over here so it seems only fair that you should get ours!
These actually is a remake of Monkey on Netflix (I think), haven’t watched it as I have such fond memories of the original I don’t want to spoil them 🙂
Don’t remember “Tour of Duty”” but really “Tom Hardy”, I’m glad you can forgive him for “Mad Max fury road” but I’m not there yet!!!
Cheers Roger.
Tour of duty was a great series, the monkey remake was good in my opinion and thoroughly enjoyed the new series, and didn’t kill my fond memories of the original, they did make some changes to the original script, but I felt they were for the better.
Sorry to disagree with you Roger but I liked Fury Road and felt Tom’s portrayal was an interesting take on the character, being completely off his rocker in the early part then regaining some semblance of his humanity as the film progressed, Mel Gibson is still my favourite Max though
You are of course entitled to your opinion Dave and I respect it, there are lots of films (lots and lots in fact) that I love and the majority of people think are garbage! The stunt work I cannot fault, however the story was rather lacking “Lets drive into the desert then drive back again” does not constitute a story for me. I also wasn’t keen on the fact that as a Mad Max film he was very much side-lined in favour of “her with the metal arm”.
But yes Mel was much better in my opinion.
Tom Hardy is great mate. Well rounded actor I reckon. He’s no Mel Gibson Mad Max but he brought his own quiet intriguing vibe to the role. Ahhhhh nahhhh I don’t wanna watch the new Monkey for the same reason. Maybe I should just watch the old ones hehe.
Sorry Dave, its is terribly sad news, I know, but mademoiselle Green is French.
Algerian-French mother. Swedish-French father. Born in France. But she speaks far better English than I can! 😀
Well that buggered that up, she does do a convincing English accent though ! LOL
Better than Phil Mitchell I’ll bet! (Steve McFadden, I had to look that up, and how to spell Mitchell, by the way).
Cheers Roger.
Roger, I hadn’t seen the Dalek clip! 🙂 That has made my week, so thanks for posting!
Just glad to have been of service John, 😉
Cheers Roger.
Sorry IRO cant can’t figure out why your comments aren’t showing up, but you wrote…..
Tom Hardy is great mate. Well rounded actor I reckon. He’s no Mel Gibson Mad Max but he brought his own quiet intriguing vibe to the role. Ahhhhh nahhhh I don’t wanna watch the new Monkey for the same reason. Maybe I should just watch the old ones hehe.
The problem is for me, every show I think of, I reckon I wouldn’t want them to make remake it as you just know it would be full of Right On politically correct, computer generated imagery on a low budget instead of miniature models or cleverly used puppets, and generally worse than the original.
Off the top of my head. Wings. BBC WW1 aeroplane drama about the early days of the Royal Flying Corps. The internal building shots were filmed in a sound stage, not on location. The flying field and countryside was just that, somewhere in England, as a hedge is a hedge and a tree a tree so no need to shoot on location. Actors filmed while ‘flying’ were just the chaps sat in the cockpits with a big electric fan, out of shot, blowing cold air at them to simulate turbulence, and the cameraman wobbled the camera a bit to show the flight of the aeroplane. All aeroplanes shown flying were, actually, as-big-as-a-small-car radio-controlled scale aeroplane models, with Action Man-type figures as the pilots. Filmed in the late 1970s and I watched it for the first time last year on dvd. And I thought it was brilliant, the production quality in no way dated, and the BBC should go about making shows in just the same way instead of blowing millions on travelling to locations, using computers too much and writing scripts to suite the currently social climate (and which won’t stand the test of time in twenty years or more).
Another one of my peeves, and a little rant.
Er, back on topic. TV show remade into a film. Casting of the leads. I’m guessing that I’ll have to pick something from before I was born, or too young to have watched it first time round. Ah, this is tough. Colditz. Secret Army. Danger UXB. The Flame Trees of Thika. Wings. Reilly Ace of Spies. I wouldn’t want to see any of those remade.
Shaka Zulu. Maybe that would be an interesting choice to remake into a film. Couldn’t remake his full life story, no real need to since the original Shaka Zulu mini-series covers most of it, so maybe focus just on the battle of Qokli hill. So it would be a war film, but there would be scope for drama before and after the battle, so not just a film full of blokes. Ain’t got a clue who to cast for it. I reckon it would tick all of the boxes concerning political and social views, today, in an obvious and not unhistorical way, which would be a positive and nothing nobody could complain about. South Africa’s KwaZulu-Natal region would lend itself, easily and cost efficiently, to filming on a good-size scale, so there’s another positive. This looks a good idea. Now how do I sell this to a studio executive?
Well, you’ve really had a good think about this Roy, (which is the point of these post tbh), I have to say that I agree totally with you concerning the old BBC drama’s, perhaps it is my love of models but I would take something like UFO or Space 1999 over a lot of these new CGI effect filled series any day. Just to marvel at the detail work that has gone into the models fills me with awe. I know that a lot of work goes into the CGI effects too, but they just don’t inspire me like the old ones do, To sit there and think “Now how did they do that?” rather than “Oh yeh that’s CGI”. I think it’s taken some of the inventiveness and magic out of these series. Flambards was a series I remember from my childhood, don’t remember that much about it but I remember loving the early planes I that too.
Political correctness is a bit of a bugbear for me too, I realise that we need to have it, especially when you look at some of the old series and films, but not when it interferes with the historical correctness of a story (and yes I am talking about the Labrador in the Battle of Britain!), was that really so offensive that it had to be removed?
I can see what you mean about Shaka Zulu, it would be interesting to see a big budget remake of that, but I think you would have to wait till Hollywood thought it would make money before they approached an historical subject like that (especially as the Americans didn’t win it!!). Though on the back of 1916 I guess historical is “”in” at the moment. I know where you can get Harvey Weinstein current address if you want…….
Cheers Roger.
One thing I will say about the modelled aeroplanes used in the BBC’s Wings; it wasn’t until I looked it up on the Internet that I found out they were large scale models, and the only reason I went looking for the information was that I didn’t think there was so many Fokker monoplanes or any Royal Aircraft Factory B.E.2s flying, the filmed footage of the dogfight duels and aerial flying was so well done.
Roger, IRO’s comments are visible for me to read at this moment. They weren’t earlier. Just something for you both to know.
Oh yep they have come up on my PC too now, weird!
I haven’t done anything.
I still believe really good model work is more realistic that CGI (especially the poor CGI work I those Syfi channel movies).
Cheers Roger.
I don’t know anything about the Pretenders (other than the band), but I would happily watch Hayley Atwell do almost anything. She is just…lovely.
Tales of the Gold Monkey. Seth MacFarlane as Jake Cutter, Patton Oswald as Corky, Jean Reno as Bon Chance Louie, and Olivia Munn as Princess Koji.
I know Harry “War through the ages” is a big fan of “Tales of the Gold Monkey” so he would probably approve of this, Interesting choices for casting too, I’m not sure about Seth as Cutter, I like Seth but is he hero material? Maybe, or what about Jude Law?
I love Oliva Munn, I would have gone for her or Kelly Hu as princess Koji too.
I met Hayley Atwell at a comicon, and I can assure you she is as lovely in real life as she is on screen. 😉
Cheers Roger.
I don’t know anything about The Pretenders, but I’d be happy to watch those two! 🙂
Also – love the Dalek video!
I know right! I remember reading a couple of years back that the re-boot of Magnum was going to star Eva Longoria as Tom Sellicks daughter “Tommi” Magnum, but the network changed their minds at the last minute. Couldn’t have been worse than the series they finally did make!
The Dalek video made me smile too.