The Greatest American Hero is back

[dragonflymanor]

Coming to the big screen. Disney recently purchased the script for a remake of the 1980's television show.

 

[mle]

now look what you started. I can't get that tune out of my head!

Here's some additional info:

http://www.upcomingmovies.com/greatestamericanhero.html

This project has been kicking around for years.


... flying away on a wing and a prayer ...

 

[mistermouse]

Loved the show and still know the entire song
Geesh - I'm getting old these days

 

[Another Voice]

Yep, Sony gets ‘Spiderman’, ‘The Incredible Hulk’ and ‘The Fantastic Four’. Warner Brothers gets ‘Superman’ ‘Batman’ and ‘Wonder Woman’. Universal gets ‘The Mummy’, ‘Frankenstein’ and ‘The Werewolf’. Others are getting ‘Silver Surfer’, ‘Daredevil’ and ‘The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen’ (with Sean Connery no less).

And Disney gets a kid from ‘Dawson’s Creek’ in a pair of red longjohns.

Smell the desperation in the air…

 

[WDWHound]

From a mad magazine parody years ago:

"Believe or not, He's still on the air
We never thought he could last so long
With that stupid suit and his lousy hiar
So much was wrong, Including this hot, rotten song"

Hey Eisner! I think Electro Women and Dynogirl may still be available! You might even be able to reunite the cast of Misfits of Science for a movie (if you can afford Courtney Cox). Since the goal seems to be to make a movie that no one will want to see, these are perfect choices. Heck, You could re-release Pearl Harbor and Dinosaur while your at it and have a flim festival.

Please, someone wake me when the nightmare is over.

 

[Another Voice]

I'm not saying that many - or any - of the offerings from the other studios are going to be better. I'm just pointing out that in the stakes of Big Time Comic Book movies, Disney is once again playing catch-up in a rather pathetic manner.

Beleive me, the script for 'Catwomen' and many of the other comic book movies are dreadful and I'm not endorsing this trend at all. And while Disney could simply drop-out of the wasteful arms race, they are choosing to join right in with everyone else. But while others are willing to gamble by putting real talent and resources into something like 'Spiderman', Disney's going off half-baked again and the result is plain embaressing. 'Hero' is nothing but a "value engineering" way of trying to cash in on the superhero trend, not an honest attempt to make a moive.

DO IT RIGHT OR DON'T DO IT AT ALL.

A simple motto to live by even in the dark recesses of Gotham.


P.S. - I liked 'Misfits of Science'.

 

[mle]

It's like a light of a new day,
It came from out of the blue.
Breaking me out of the spell I was in,
Making all of my wishes come true.

Maybe Disney has been listening to this verse too many times. LOL

 

[WDWHound]

Objectivity? Me?
I was unaware that Dinosaur made money. I am amazed that Dinosaur made money. Actually, it was an unfair example. At least it was working from an original story. The script was worse than something 1000 monkey's would come up with while typing at random during a wild drinking binge, but it was original. Still, I think Dinosaur can be classified as an honest mistake.

The Bradys was a parody on something that has become part of our culture. I watched GAH when it came out, but I think most people promply forgot the show when it got canceled. It is hardly the pop culture icon that the Brady Bunch is.

"So what, Disney makes GAH, maybe it costs 45 mil and brings in 65 mil." I have no problem with this, if it happens. I just don't see this movie being a likely candidate for this (of course, I didn't think George of the Jungle would do well either).

In the end, I guess I would second what Voice is saying (despite his proclaimed affection for Misfits of Science ). While it may have a cult following, I see Greatest American Hero as forgetable show that has been long since forgotten my most people. It is possible that Disney can make a minor success out of something that was minorly successful the first time, but why bother? Why not start out with something that people loved the first time and make something great out of that? Even better, why don't they come up with their own original idea and make something great out of that.

Small, smart little movies that make a modest profit are a great idea and can do very well (Look at the Princess Diarys), but they have to have a good premise and I just don't think GAH is strong enough to fit the bill. If they must follow eveyone else, they could at least pick something stronger to follow with. Still, I'd really prefer they return to trying to lead with quality and originality, rather than follow with mediocrity.

 

[JeffJewell]

Dinosaur, a money-making movie (maybe not as much as hoped but still ended up in the black)

I'd like to make a point that I believe gets missed a lot, around these parts.

Dinosaur took in enough money that 'Scoop feels comfortable declaring it a "money-making movie," even though we all know that the vagaries of studio accounting preclude a truly meaningful analysis. But whatever the true delta between cost and reciepts might be, a direct result of Dinosaur's box office was the practical dismantling of The Secret Lab. In other words, Dinosaur brought in an amount of money so pitiful that Disney decided they needed to lock the door in case someone might ever again attempt to perpetrate such a piece of film-making.

If you're looking for a reason to compliment Dinosaur, do it on the basis of the groundbreaking work in computer animation, not its gross receipts to production costs ratio. I'll be the first to acknowledge Eisner's experience in the field of manipulating such ratios, and his actions indicate he feels Dinosaur's ratio was embarrassing.

Don't get me wrong, Chad, I'm not saying your statement was incorrect. But even if we agree it _was_ correct, there is still plenty of evidence that Dinosaur didn't do enough "money-making" to make a damned bit of difference to anyone.

Jeff

PS: That's my biggest fear concerning Lilo and Stitch: that it might not make enough money to impress the big boys to the extent that "traditional animation" remains on their radar. Indeed, part of me suspects there is no way L&S could possibly generate enough money to make such an impression.

 

[Another Voice]

If I may be so presumptuous to summarize your argument Mr. Scoop, the goal of Disney is simply to make any movie so long as it turns a profit. Good, bad, indifferent – only money matters.

Is that the way you keep an image of quality? Is magic now defined as doing it cheaper than the first guy did? And isn’t funny how so many of their can’t-miss, sure-fire, guaranteed box office blockbusters actually do very poorly at the box office. And all those silly little non commercial movies seem to rake in the dough?

“Doing it right” has absolutely nothing to do with cost. Both ‘Pearl Harbor’ and ‘Bubble Boy’ were bad movies – the budget didn’t make a difference for either. And the public doesn’t care about the budget either; they just care about the end product. Perhaps a good studio worries less about minimizing the downside risk of bad ideas and instead spends its time figuring out how to make a good film out of a good idea.

Disney didn’t buy ‘Greatest American Hero’ because it was a good idea. They bought it because mining obscure television shows is about all they are capable of these days and ‘GAH’ is the biggest pre-sold concept they’re willing to pay for. There isn’t a single producer or writer in town that will take a serious project to them and they are forced to live at the very bottom of the food chain. In fact I’ve heard more than a few people refer to the company as WaltMart – a low end retailer of cheap mass market goods.

Make good movies and the dollars will follow.


P.S. The only way you can figure that ‘Dinosaur’ made money is to let Arthur Andersen keep the books. Disney's own public statements say this one cost more than ‘Pearl Harbor’ did.


P.P.S. – The “1,000 monkeys” line is pretty interesting. We’ve been using it around the office for years as a rating scale - “this script is ten monkeys, fifteen minutes”. I think it may have started as a line in ‘Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy’.

 

[Demosthenes]

I can't be this big a geek--but I'm looking forward to this movie.

 

[JeffJewell]

sometimes you'll get a DinoRama letdown

When are we going to get a Pirates of the Caribbean tour de force? (Rhetorical answer: "We're not.")

This is the main disconnect between us, I think: you want to insist that DinoRama is just a low-end aberration; when overwhelming evidence suggests that DinoRama actually represents the SOP of Eisner's Disney.

Jeff

 

[Bstanley]

overwhelming evidence suggests that DinoRama actually represents the SOP of Eisner's Disney

Why?

Based on ME's last eighteen years at Disney the facts overwhelmingly point in the entirely opposite direction...there's no point in listing all the parks, attractions, resorts, ride redos, etc that have occurred on his watch.

On the other hand you would have to say that he hasn't been all that impressive lately with his choice of a management team for the parks... I don't think one needs to look any farther than the President of Walt Disney Attractions with his "impressive array of management skills and attention to the Disney standards of excellence" (an Eisner quote from Dec. '98 when he announced the new organization and President) to understand the thinking(?) behind DinoRama.

And just to make it look like this thread has stayed on topic - I personally think that if you were going to make a pleasant, inexpensive, tongue-in-cheek, family movie - ala "The Parent Trap", "Swiss Family Robinson", "Polyanna", etc. - that the Great American Hero concept would be a good basis. We'll just have to wait and see whether it works out.

 

[WDWHound]

Scoop: It is possible that the GAH remake will be good, but I put the odds on it as being low. I have explained my reasoning before, but I will try to sum it up here.

1) GAH was a cute little show, but but not much more than than (your opinoin may vary). I just don't see it as a sensible base for a feature film.

2) Regardless of the quality of its source, GAH will be a remake. Its another effort in the Disney's quest to find that magic formula that allows them to make money without coming up with something original. Superheros are in? Great, lets find a superhero we already own (GAH was an ABC show) and put out a super hero movie. Reused concepts and trend following rarely result in quality. It can happen, but the odds are against it. Did we learn nothing from the Beverly Hillbillys?

3) Where I see a nightmare and you don't is that I can find no evidience in Disneys recent history or announced plans that they are ever planning on returning to quality and originality in the US parks or in films. The goal seems to be make the most money for they least outlay and no concern whther what they produce is the best product out there. The goal should be to envision the best product they can produce and then try to find a way to produce it efficiently. I know you disagree that Disney has adopted a money first, quality second approach and I respect that. Perhaps if Lilo and Stich is as good as it sounds and the company commits to making more films of its caliber, I will see things differently. The rumors about Beastly Kindom have also given me a small bit of hope.

AV: And here I was thinking I was being original with my monkeys quote . I din't realized it at the time I posted, but I beleive you are right about that quote coming from The Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy. By the way, doesn't Disney own the rights to the Hitchiker's Guide? Do you know what happened to their plans to make a movie from it?

 

[Another Voice]

I mentioned all the films for other studios to show that ‘Greatest American Hero’ is Disney’s entry into that field – and that once again Disney is playing “me too” without any hope for success. No matter how wonderfully tongue-in-cheek ‘GAH’ turns out, it simply isn’t going to draw anywhere near the response that ‘The Hulk’ is going to get. It’s not going to even get the notice of ‘Charlie’s Angels’. Disney is simply throwing money in this direction so they can be seen as a “player”.

I can think of dozens of other uses for that money.

It is impossible for everything to be filmed just we can see how well it’s going to turn out. People every day make judgment calls based on nothing but a script or even a few sentences outlining the idea. A bad system perhaps, but that’s Hollywood. Better to stop a bad idea early rather than having to pay for it later.

It very easy to ruin a good idea (‘The Rocketeer’, ‘Planet of the Apes’) than it is to succeed with a good idea (‘Spiderman’). And it is almost impossible to take a bad idea and succeed. Disney doesn’t have the kind of track record I’d trust to turn ‘GAH’ into something good.

Save the money on the red pajamas. If they want a pre-sold concept, hirer a real writer and kick ‘Tron 2.0’ out of development hell.

P.S. – Eisner’s early success came when he was surrounded by a many talented and hard working people. Those people have been leaving over time, letting more and more of the “real Eisner” show through. What you see now was there all along. There’s just no one left to stop the bad stuff anymore.

P.S.S. – Yes, Disney did have the ‘Hitchhiker’s’ rights. They sat on them for more than a decade. They turned down more than a dozen scripts from Mr. Adams as being too expensive. I don’t know the status of the project anymore. I’ll dig into it.

P.S.S.S. – Yes, there was a flurry of innovation in Disney’s live action film unit with ‘Princess’ and ‘The Rookie’. They fired that executive.

 

[Peter Pirate]

RE: GAH, while I'll agree that the tv show was no gem that doesn't mean the idea for a feature is necessarily a bad one. Ultimately it will come down to what is done with the idea, not the idea itself. A good script, good actors & production & it could be unexpectedly big. Done on the cheap, it'll be a loser, but it isn't the idea per say that hinders the project, IMO...

 

[Bstanley]

Great Zot! I don't imagine that GAH is going to be the only film released by Disney 'Corp' the year that it is released...it doesn't have to be as 'big' a movie as [Spiderman, Hulk, fill in the blank] to be successful - either from a box office standpoint or from a viewer's standpoint. A movie doesn't need to be a blockbuster to justify being called a good movie. And hopefully Disney is only throwing as much money at it as it deserves. That's where the real 'magic' is.

I remain unconvinced that GAH is a sufficiently bad idea to drown it.

I do agree that it will always be harder to make a good movie than to make a bad one. Hopefully GAH will turn out to be more of a 'Spy Kids' than a 'The Musketeer' (the 3 Musketeers has GOT to be the most filmed story in history...).

P.S. - I agree that ME had an excellent 'supporting cast' in the past. However I remain unconvinced that everything that went right back then was their fault, just like I remain unconvinced that everything that goes wrong now is ME's fault (or vvs for that matter).

 

[Another Voice]

Money, talent and time are limited resources. You have to pick and choose how they are spent.

Every year more than 45,000 feature length screenplays are registered with the Writer’s Guild. Each day a stream of writers and producers throw out thousands of ideas for movies. Hundreds of people read new books, magazines and newspapers in search for story material. And dozens of unsolicited screenplays arrive at the Disney lot every day (all of them returned unopened).

Out of all these thousands and thousands and thousands of ideas – this is the one that Disney taps to spent time and money on. All those resources going to produce a big screen version of a long-forgotten television show that ran out of steam after only two and a half seasons before being cancelled because no one cared about it. Sixty million dollars plus another fifty for marketing plus an additional ten or so for overhead, and that’s the on the low end. That’s an awful lot of money for a few pallid “look he’s trying to fly” jokes.

It’s simply sad that this is now the best we can expect from Disney.


P.S. - Michael Eisner was hired to be the supporting player to Frank Wells. Eisner never signed a check, here was there simply because of his "Hollywood credibility". Sadly Mr. Disney, Mr. Gold and the Basses never knew where The Ego would take things.

 

[YoHo]

Well, this thread took a turn.
Anyway, back on point, a Pox on all of you who Besmirch the Greatness of The Greatest American Hero. This movie will be the best movie ever and you all make water come out of my eye.



(I'm, only being slightly silly, I am actually looking forward to this movie.)

 

[Another Voice]

The quality the oozes out of ‘Bubble Boy’, ‘Corky Romano’, ‘Sorority Boys’, ‘Scary Movie 2’ and ‘Texas Rangers’? I don’t buy the argument that making garbage is okay so long as you toss in a good one every now and then. If you don’t want to even attempt at making a good move, do something useful instead and pick up trash beside the freeway. There are too many talented people around here wasting away to tolerate the lazy.

There’s always a chance that ‘GAH’ could be a good movie, but there is no indication that even the attempt will be made. This is just more cynical movie making – spend as little as possible, work as little as possible, give your friends a job movie – that is simply a waste of energy. Believe me, the guy who puts your groceries in the bag at the store is going to show more enthusiasm for his job than anyone working on this film will show in theirs.

I’m not blind or adverse to good movies either. I think I was the first to talk about ‘The Princess Diaries’ around these parts and I’ve been saying good things about ‘Lilo and Stitch’ since I’ve been posting. But I don’t believe in grading on a curve – any filmmaker MUST try for excellence each and every time. No exceptions. Sure, not everything will turn out well but that’s acceptable as long as the effort was made.

I just don’t see a lot of people breaking a sweat on the Disney lot these days. Even the guys that are going to have to tease out William Katt's hair again for the cameo.