Do you ever wonder what Hollywood pitch sessions are like now? For those not familiar, a pitch session is when producers come in and meet with studio executives to lay out their ideas for potential movies or TV shows. If the execs like what they hear, they “green light” a project and the producers can start casting for roles and choosing set locations. (The best depiction of this ever was on South Park when Cartman was pretending to be the AWESOMO robot and came up with more than 200 movie ideas all starring Adam Sandler).
If I was in one those meetings I’d probably be rolling my eyes constantly and asking “Didn’t they already make that one?” Half of all movies are now superhero flicks. Half of all TV shows are “reboots” of shows we in Generation X watched as kids. And now we have the fourth incarnation of A Star is Born coming to a theater near you.
Today’s moviegoers may vaguely remember the 1976 version starring Kris Kristofferson and Barbara Streisand. I’ve always though that Kristofferson should have won an Academy Award for pretending to find Streisand attractive in that movie. But I doubt many remember that a remake was done in 1954 that starred Judy Garland–who did get an Oscar nomination. And no one has probably seen the original A Star is Born released in 1937 starring Fredric March and Janet Gaynor.
Little has been done to change the stories in all of these versions. The first two featured fading male stars that fall in love with rising young starlets and help them further their careers. The ’76 version flipped the script by switching from Hollywood actors to rock and roll stars–and that is the storyline the new re-re-re-remake is sticking with–as Bradley Cooper becomes the new Kris Kristofferson and Lady Gaga replaces Streisand.
I can only assume that Netflix and Hulu aren’t streaming any of the first three versions of A Star is Born–and that is why the studio thinks anyone will be interested in version 4.0. Spoiler alert, just like the first three times we’ve seen this, the girl becomes the star and the aging man dies in a horribly tragic way.
Now let me tell you about this idea I have for a remake of Ben Hur–but with giant, fighting robots that come from outer space.
