My 2 cents on the Phantasm reimaging
At a time where our favorites such as "Evil Dead","The Fog","Prom Night", etc are all getting the facelift treatment, todays news shouldn't shock anyone. News broke today, March 10th 2005, that New Line Cinema was wrapping up final negotiations with Director Don Coscarelli to obtain the rights to his "Phantasm" series.New Line is planning a relaunch (the sugarcoating term for remake) of the "Phantasm" series. Which will revolve around the coming of age of one of the series cornerstone characters, Mike.
This is the second big story to break this week in horror fan circles. The first one was Quentin Tarantino signing on to direct the next "Friday the 13th" film. The "Phantasm" series dealt with an evil otherwordly graverobber aptly named The Tall Man, who with his lurkers (deformed cloak sporting midgets), and his flying spheres of death, killed off town after town of people, and robbed their graves to enslave the dead to help him continue the process in the next town. Mike and Reggie were two characters who played nemesises to the Tall Man. Mike was especially one of his targets since he had the ability to see the future, and therefore posed a threat to the wicked Tall Mans scheme. This new reimaging of the series is being been labeled "The Definitive Phantasm Trilogy". and It will also bring the series back into theaters starting from scratch with part 1 and moving on from there.
So what are we supposed to do and think of the real "Phantasm" series, which started in 1979 with the originl "Phantasm" and ended in 1998 with "Phantasm 4: Oblivion"? Well a fifth and final film was rumored for awhile, which would've involved the Tall Man now in posession of most of the United States with only a small part of it not having yet been overrun by his plague of the undead. Bruce Campbell was even rumored to be involved with the movie. The project was off and on for years. However at this point, we can safely say that won't happen. I guess were supposed to now look at the series as a seperate entity to this relaunch trilogy. Although current rumor has it that Angus Scrimm will return to play the Tall Man in this new trilogy New Line is planning.
With Angus nearing 80, one would think why not just get part 5 into production and finish off the series once and for all? Another question would be why remake these films at all? Parts 1 and 2 were great movies, with 3 and 4 being the weaklinks, they still weren't as bad as the latest "Leprechaun" or "From Dusk Till Dawn" sequel.
I for one am happy to hear the "Phantasm" movies will be returning to the big screen, but in a market already overcrowed with needless remakes, do we really need another one? Especially a remake of an entire trilogy as they will be totally disregarding the fourth installment altogether. and Now with this series getting a reimaging, adding it to a list which includes "The Evil Dead","Prom Night", and "The Fog", are other horror favorites like "Hellraiser" and "Halloween" right around the corner from one of these "reimaging" or "Relaunch" treatments?
What about the market for these films? The "Phantasm" series was always a cult series. Not as popular as the "Evil Dead" films, but pretty close. They never however achieved big mainstream status such as "Halloween" or "A Nightmare on Elm Street". Would a relaunch be a good idea from a financial standpoint for New Line?This leads me to my next and last point. With all the talk of "Freddy vs Jason vs Ash", and then countless other horror icon names being rumored to be tossed into the mix, it's kind of odd how New Line would purchase this franchise at this time,and then try and relaunch it to moviegoers to refresh their memory of the series as well as gain some new fans along the way. and With people still wanting a "Freddy vs Jason 2" or "Freddy vs Jason vs someone" movie, maybe our old buddies over at New Line are thinking on the same page.
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Perhaps we could see the Tallman take on Freddy and Jason in "Freddy vs Jason 2". Or Freddy vs The Tallman in a film just featuring the both of them one on one. One things for sure, New Line didn't just buy the rights to this franchise for a relaunch of the series. When a movie company purchases the rights to a cult series such as the "Phantasm" movies, a redo of the series is just the tip of the iceberg of what you cna do when you also own the rights to the Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger characters. It's obvious,They've got bigger plans. Much much bigger.
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