Footloose Remake Bombs at Box Office

If there's a message in the opening weekends of two much anticipated new movies, it's that the age of remakes may finally be coming to an end.  The new and updated versions of the 1980s cult classic Footloose and the classic creature feature The Thing are not putting butts in the seats.

Those Hollywood types now remaking 'Dirty Dancing' and 'Rock of Ages' need to take note of what happened this weekend.  If this weekend's box office is any indication, the '80s nostalgia wave is over. Last week's winner, 'Real Steel,' won again, beating all three newcomers, including reboots of two classic Reagan Era titles -- 'Footloose' and 'The Thing.'

With its father-son drama and boxing-'bot action, 'Real Steel' is proving a stronger family draw than pundits predicted.

'Footloose' was expected to give 'Real Steel' a run for its money. Still, despite the popularity of dance films among young audiences, this virtual shot-for-shot remake of the 1984 film seemed designed to appeal more to middle-aged fans of the original than to kids the same age as the movie's teenage rebels.

Studio polling found that only one in four people in the audience was under 18.  Gender wise, the audience was 75 percent female, which seems to say that young men have little or no interest in seeing a remake of a movie their parents love.

'The Thing' is the latest in a series of horror flops.  It has an odd history.  The new movie is a prequel to the 1982 John Carpenter classic, which was itself a remake of the original cult classic made in 1952.  Who's on first?

via Weekend Box Office: 'Real Steel' Stomps 'Footloose,' Thwacks 'The Thing' - The Moviefone Blog.

Hollywood's love affair with remaking hit movies is clear proof that originality is a forbidden word in LaLa Land.  Movies are so expensive to make the people with the money don't want to take chances on something that's new and original, so, they remake something that made money 20 or 30 years ago.

They ignore the fact that the vast majority of remakes are flops.

One more thing.  How do so called movie "pundits" keep their jobs?  They're wrong more often than they're right.