Poltergeist Remake Gets a Release Date

Poltergeist, The Wedding Singer and Hamlet

By Dustin Rowles | Posted Under Trade News | Comments (28)

It’s another edition of the fastest growing quiz sensation on the World Wide Web: Pajiba’s Two Truths and a Lie, the game that exposes the idiocy of the Hollywood machine. In our last edition of Two Truths and a Lie, you narrowly chose the lie over the three truths. Thirty-six percent of you correctly identified the lie: A Fatal Attraction remake for tweens, which beat out the three truths: A Gunsmoke movie (32 percent); an American remake of The Orphanage (20 percent) and a Gothic reimagining of Little Red Riding Hood (10 percent)? In fact, many of you hoped that the Red Riding Hood reimagining was true.

Today, we offer up three more projects. Two of them are true, and one is the lie. It is your task to pick out the one I made up.

A) Tobe Hooper’s classic 1982 film, Poltergeist, is prepping for a big screen remake. Juliet Snowden and Stiles White (Boogeyman) are penning the screenplay; Vadim Perelmen (The House of Sand and Fog) is being considered as director; and a release date has been set for November 2010.

B) Eleven years after the original, Adam Sandler and Happy Madison productions are setting up a sequel to The Wedding Singer. Script details are scant, but the sequel is expected to be set in the 90s and center around Julia’s unexpected pregnancy. Barrymore is negotiating to return. Long-time Happy Madison writer, Tim Herlihy, who wrote the original (as well as Bedtime Stories, Big Daddy and Waterboy) is set to pen the script and make his debut as a feature director.

C) Producer Mark Thomas is setting up a series of six Shakespeare adaptations targeted at the Harry Potter and High School Musical teen market. The first of the six movies will be a 3D musical version of Hamlet. Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Twelfth Night and The Tempest will follow. In addition, an “American Idol” style TV show is being set up to find the leads for the Romeo and Juliet installment in the Shakespearean franchise.

poll by twiigs.com

Follow @pajiba

← All About Steve Trailer | Patterson Hood - Murdering Oscar (And Other Love Songs) Review →

Comments

The one I want to see is the lie: 3D Hamlet.

Posted by: TSF at August 13, 2009 11:34 AM

If the Poltergeist one is true, can't they just write a new story about a poltergeist? Why does it have to be a remake?

I think I ask this kind of question every time I hear about a remake.

Posted by: Carrie at August 13, 2009 11:36 AM

Oh and I'm going with the Wedding Singer sequel as the lie, just because I would not be remotely surprised by 3D Hamlet. Everything is frickin 3D these days.

Posted by: Carrie at August 13, 2009 11:39 AM

Can we get some of those angels from Legion to take out Happy Madison? Please?

Posted by: Tracer Bullet at August 13, 2009 11:39 AM

You need an "all of the above" choice.

Posted by: henchman for hire at August 13, 2009 11:39 AM

Isn't Simon Cowell the owner of the American Idol franchise? There's no way a decent Brit would allow Shakespeare to be desecrated so horribly.

Wait...it's Simon Cowell, so I guess that shit is possible. Fuck...

Posted by: Trouble at August 13, 2009 11:48 AM

100% nailed this one. Already was riled up about Poltergeist remake a while ago, and heard about the Hamlet thing. Just once I'd like to hear a rumor that was exciting.

So I just read an interesting article in Time about the Big Bang Theory and some of the questions that may be answered by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN when it gets up and running. There is going to be a lot of hoopla on that, especially from the dipshits that think it will open up a blackhole and destroy existence.

Got me wondering why some enterprising producer doesn't fast track the Douglas Preston book "Blasphemy". This is a story about a group of scientists that inadvertantly open up a hole to speak to God using the largest particle accelerator in the world. Meanwhile a religious group gets it into their heads the scientists are evil and are going to bring about hell on earth. It's a fast moving, smart thriller and would make a great movie if handled correctly.

I guess what I'm trying to say is, I just don't understand what the fuck goes through these morons' heads. Is it like "The 7th Sign"? We've reached the very last story and now they can only be remade or it will bring about armageddon? Am I all wrong about the Hollywood suits, are they actually trying to save us all through endless repetitive offerings?

Nah, I was right the first time. They are just asshats.

Posted by: TylerDFC at August 13, 2009 11:49 AM

Of course they're remaking Poltergeist, that's what Hollywood does these days -- they remake stuff. Or "reboot" it. Whatever. My only question is, what's taken them so long to get around to this one? And Hamlet: The Musical (now in glorious 3D!) falls squarely into the category "Shit That's So Out There It Couldn't Possibly Be Fake." So, by process of elimination, the Wedding Singer sequel must be the lie.

Posted by: Another Kate at August 13, 2009 11:50 AM

I'm going with Wedding Singer, because #1 is true and #3 is so ridiculous that I have to believe it.

Posted by: Julie at August 13, 2009 11:51 AM

I DON'T LIKE THIS GAME.

Posted by: figgy at August 13, 2009 12:14 PM

Hey, did you guys hear that Gina Carano is facing Cris Cyborg for the Women's Championship? I've heard it 12 times today. Bet it's gonna be a good one!

Posted by: Optimus Rhyme at August 13, 2009 12:17 PM

#3 is false.

Posted by: Cindy at August 13, 2009 12:20 PM

I'm with Julie on the preposterousness of #3, although Hollywood can will and has dumbed down Shakespeare to mongoloid proportions. They routinely rape my great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather's childhood.

#1 is a clever decoy- it's not out of the question based on the creatively bankrupt Hollywood machine. However, everyone knows that they don't want to resurrect the curse that plagued the original, because no actor in their right mind would attach themselves to it.

Wait, that's a good question- which actors would you like to see in the new Poltergeist film, then get bit by a mosquito and die? Mine would be Gweneth Paltrow as the mom, Keanu Reeves as the dad. Dakota Fanning, Zac Effron, and that little kid from Jerry Mcguire (however old he is now)...

Posted by: logar at August 13, 2009 12:21 PM

yea... I'd say the wedding singer one is a lying liar who lies because remember when that abortion of film 50 first dates came out and everybody made such a huge freakin deal about how Sandler and Barrymore hadn't worked together SINCE the wedding singer... yeah... pants on fire...

Posted by: Tammers at August 13, 2009 12:38 PM

can't they just ALL be lies?
can't teenagers just read shakespeare like the rest of us did without it being dumbed down for them?
can't happy madison go away already?
can't the the curse from the first round of Poltergeist movies just take out everyone involved in this remake?
can't it be friday?
can't i get a wet bar at my desk?

Posted by: JenVegas at August 13, 2009 12:39 PM

Hm. Well, we've already talked about the Poltergeist remake, and also it's a stupid idea, so I know that one is true.

As for the other two. Well, didn't The Wedding Singer get made into a stage show? And since the new trend is to take a movie, especially an 80s movie, turn it into a stage show, and then make a movie based on the stage show, that seems like it's logically true.

So, I vote for 3-D Hamlet as the lie. Although, didn't they do some MTV movie versions of classic operas (I'm 76% sure there was something called Carmen: A Hip-Hopera)? Oh, and they did that Wuthering Heights one also, with that girl from Swimfan, right? What would stop anyone from doing the same to Shakespeare?

Posted by: Anna von Beaverplatz at August 13, 2009 12:41 PM

The Wedding Singer sequel is the lie. "Shakespeare 4 Kidz" is, unfortunately, real.

Posted by: Snath at August 13, 2009 12:44 PM

It's the 3D aspect that makes it unbelievable.

What is there in Hamlet that would be enhanced by perceiving an extra dimension? It's not the most action-packed story of Shakespeare's.

Posted by: Wednesday at August 13, 2009 12:48 PM

So, I'm all for making Shakespeare "accessible" to a modern audience, in the 10 Things I Hate About You and She's The Man sense, mainly because I'm a Shakespeare nerd but I also see the reasoning that it helps kids connect to the Bard. I mean, whatever. If they make it, I'll see it.

But why. why in the name of WHATEVER DIETY YOU BELIEVE IN would they make a musical? A MUSICAL? I defy you to think of a worse idea

oh no wait I thought of one

HAMLET THE MUSICAL IN 3D

SERIOUSLY

WHAT THE FUCK.

I will now return to work and unlock my caps button.

Posted by: buttercup at August 13, 2009 12:50 PM

Ya know, it just struck me that we have yet to get any movies based on breakfast cereals. So the only question is when will we get "Captain Crunch: The Movie" and will it be R or Hard R?*

*yes, this joke is from The Simpsons but still damn funny.

Posted by: TylerDFC at August 13, 2009 1:00 PM

Tyler DFC:

This is for you.

Posted by: Jerce at August 13, 2009 1:45 PM

Wow. Um ... eenie, meenie, minie ...

Posted by: , (the commenter formerly known as bucdaddy) at August 13, 2009 2:46 PM

I see "Hamlet musical" and I get the song "Rock me sexy Jesus" in my head.
Damn, damn, damn. I thought that movie was supposed to be a joke, not inspiration!!

Posted by: myysharona (formerly Sharon) at August 13, 2009 3:06 PM

m(fS)

There's nothing wrong with getting Rock me, Rock me, Rock me sexy Jesus in your head.

Oh wait.

Damn.

Posted by: icecreammang at August 13, 2009 6:16 PM

Hope C is true, it's about time.

Posted by: zito at August 13, 2009 6:40 PM

Please tell me it's the last one. Please. I was okay with it until the American Idol casting thing. Please.

Posted by: Lucas at August 13, 2009 8:24 PM

Am I the only one who remembers the Gilligan's Island episode where a famous director winds up on the island (it was astounding how many people ended up briefly on that uncharted desert isle, and never thought to send help after they themselves got away)? Ginger is desperate not only to be rescued, but to impress the director - so they put on a musical Hamlet.

Oh, thank you, youtube gods! It's here!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cNN5zwEcXM

Posted by: Edith at August 13, 2009 11:00 PM

If they name it "Hamlet 3D," people will think it's going to have Steve Coogan with a refrain of "Rock Me Sexy Jesus."

Posted by: Jim at August 14, 2009 7:35 AM

Pajiba

Pajiba: Reviews, Commentary, Angst

Poltergeist, The Wedding Singer and Hamlet

Comments