Lacey Bridges
You can forget about J.J Abrams rebooting the “Critters” franchise, let alone giving us a bigscreen version of “Lost” (even if it was a way to give us something with a credible ending), seems the man that relaunched “Mission : Impossible”, “Star Trek” and “Star Wars” is done with recycling.
Abrams, who got his start in TV, gained a reputation fairly early in his career for being one of the most unique and fresh voices of the small screen. His work, which included “Felicity”, “Alias” and “Fringe”, may have paid homage to the classics, by way of theme or tone, but they stood on their own as mostly original, imaginative prime-time offerings.
Paramount would be the one to change all that. With his bigscreen venture “Mission : Impossible III” scoring with both critics and cinemagoers, the studio would then get him onboard their relaunch of the long-running “Star Trek” brand. It too hit big. A couple of successful “Trek” movies behind him, Abrams gets the offer to bring Disney’s “Star Wars” back to the big screen. Bam! It’s a smash!. And now he’s one of the brains behind the big TV reworking of “Westworld”. It too is a success. It too is a remake of something from the past. What’s old is new again.. and all that. Spot the pattern?
While Abrams is no doubt rather chuffed at how the reboots have done, he’s clearly ready to sink his teeth into something more original – even if it means he can no longer phone in for the meetings from the Coffee Bean anymore.
At yesterday’s Golden Globes, the Bad Robot CEO said : “You know, I feel incredibly lucky to have gotten involved in things that I loved when I was a kid. In fact, even Westworld, which we’re here for tonight, is one of them. But I don’t feel any desire to do that again. I feel like I’ve done enough of that that I’m more excited about working on things that are original ideas that perhaps one day someone else will have to reboot. I do think that if you’re telling a story that is not moving anything forward, not introducing anything that’s relevant, that’s not creating a new mythology or an extension of it, then a complete remake of something feels like a mistake.”
While Abrams is involved in a producing capacity on a number of franchise films (like the next “Star Trek” and “Star Wars”), it sounds like his next directing effort will be something fresh. Stay tuned…
Via ‘People‘
