Woah Wait What? A Memento Remake In The Works?!
Holy Mary, Moses, and Joseph.
Apparently AMBI Pictures have purchased the rights to reboot Memento?!?! Who? What? For the love of. Can anyone? Stop!!! What the helllll?
Regrouping and taking a few Dextroamphetamine and I’ll be back in a few.
Alright. Let’s try again. Soaked a bit in this information and now I’m back again. And I’m ok now. Really. No seriously, what is AMBI thinking right now? They aren’t. They cannot be thinking. Memento is one of the single best movies ever. And they plan to bring, WHAT EXACTLY TO THE TABLE WITHOUT NOLAN?!? Nolan is the guy who wrote and directed Memento. He also did the Dark Knight series. Oh, and Interstellar, Inception, The Prestige, etc etc etc.
Alright. If you are new here this rant means nothing to you. But I wrote a little post about the original Memento (oh that sounded so flipping gross!!! “The Original? Blech!) and it has gotten hundreds and hundreds of comments. Maybe 500? Literally, hundreds of thousands of words of dialogue of comments. I’ve literally considered making that post, I kid you not, into a book. Not an e-book. A full fledged hardback book talking about all the possible ways to think about the movie. There have been over a quarter million reads averaging over 10 minutes a page view. I know my fair share about this movie. Heck you should join us out there, add your voice to the conversation.
Anyway, if you live under a rock, and don’t know anything about the movie, Memento was originally released in 2000, and it put Christopher Nolan literally on the map. Before Memento, he was no one. Just a glimmer in the viewing audience’s eye and nothing more. But with its uber tight plotting driven by his brother’s original Memento Mori idea and Christopher’s well played scripting structure it deserved to win at the Academy. And the Academy recognized the talent by nominating the film for two Academy Awards – Best Original Screenplay for Nolan and Best Editing for Dody Dorn.
So, basically, AMBI co-founder Monika Bacardi has said about the Memento remake: “We intend to stay true to Christopher Nolan’s vision and deliver a memorable movie that is every bit as edgy, iconic and award-worthy as the original. It’s a big responsibility to deliver something that lives up to the mastery of the original, but we are extremely excited and motivated to bring this puzzle back to life and back into the minds of moviegoers.”
Over at flickering myth there is a great article talking about why redoing fantastic movies just to make a buck is a terrible idea. Including the idea of redoing Memento. It’s a great article that basically says that we have commoditized everything, especially the great movies. And in so doing we are pillaging them.
And I have to say that this remake could not be a more blatant example of this commoditization and pillaging happening right before our eyes. The original Memento is perfect. Literally, this absolutely is an absolutely no hyperbole zone here. Zero… It is literally perfect the way it is. If you feel so inclined, spend the cash to clean the original print and rerelease it in theaters again. Heck, I’d go. Twice. Or better yet, make it 3D! I’d laugh at you for it, and then I’d give you my cash. But to remake the original? Awful. Terrible terrible idea. No ifs ands or buts about it. Completely and totally a money grubbing play.
Alright, take a deep breath…
If that news has you half as down as I am about it, you’ll need a pick me up. Right? I’ve got mind BLOWING movie news for you that will more than make up for it. Promise. Apparently, Christopher Nolan might possibly be attached to doing a three movie arc about Akira.
If you didn’t grow up a huge fan of Akira like I did, maybe you don’t know about it? If not, Akira is basically the story of a gang of motorcyclists in the futuristic, post-apocalyptic city of Neo-Tokyo – which is basically a combo of Blade Runner and Tron: Legacy. There are several characters in the Akira series that also have imposing mental abilities. So we have Neo-Tokyo, Post apocalyptic chaos, and mentalists out to destroy whole factions of the city. What is not to love here for Nolan? It’s right up his alley in every way.
I’m hearing that the original reason Akira had trouble getting off the ground previously was due to the expense associated with undertaking such a production. Which, you know, with this idea, has got to be an enormous budget. But if Nolan is on board, I’m guessing that Akira may just get the money necessary to do it justice. Another factor connecting Chris to the project is that his brother Jonathan has been attached to the project and has been doing a rewrite on the script. And if you know anything about the Nolan brothers, where one goes, the other usually follows. And if Jonathan is saying they may have a few good ideas up their sleeves for the script, it may just be that Chris will jump on board. Another factor could be that Chris Nolan’s latest movie will be out in the summer of 2017… which is a still unnamed project. Some are conjecturing that the 2017 project is Akira… but that is the epitome of crazy. I’m sure this latest movie of Nolan’s is his own project, and Akira would follow in the 2019 time frame, with maybe yearly releases in 2020 and 2021?
Anyway. All I have to say is, I’m stoked about Akira. I think Nolan could really make that movie a mind blowing experience. And as for the previous news, let’s just not talk about it anymore… and maybe it’ll just not be a thing anymore. Right? Right.
