Money, Meet Mouth

It's only right that I ring in on my own question: Four Films I'd Like To Rewrite For Whatever Reason. Coming up with the question was easy, answering it not so much.

Sometimes They Come Back: The first feature-length script I completed was meant to be an academic exercise. I'd hit a wall with my own stories, finding part of the way through that my second act had problems or whatever. I decided to take a story I knew worked---"Sometimes They Come Back" by Stephen King--- and adapt it, teaching myself the process without having to worry about plot. I found out that the task wasn't as easy as I'd thought; where King made the reader fill in the gaps in narrative with their imagination, I needed to extrapolate. I even found what I thought was a great way to introduce a voice of reason into the end of the second act. In the original story, King had left one of the street hoods out of the action, the one hood that hadn't died years before in a car crash. I brought the character back in a minor role to kick the hero back into action against the ghosts after they'd killed his wife. After finishing the draft, I liked it so much that I thought of looking into the dollar-option deal King reportedly makes with up-and-comers. I finished a few days before Christmas that year and found out just after Christmas that a TV-movie was being shot. I've never watched it, but could tell from what I read about it that Lawrence Konner and Mark Rosenthal had the same idea about the fourth hood.

Clockers: Inside Man reminded me of what a great director Spike Lee can be. I just don't always like his writing. Richard Price's novel was mindblowing to me, a lesson in building a sense of thick, oppressive inevitability. His precise detailing of the setting and the life one leads there in surrender to whatever path fate leads you down when you feel you can't pave your own path left me shaking my head in wonder at the power of the written word. The simplistic treatment of his story as rewritten by Spike had me shaking my head in wonder at how good material could go so wrong.

Enemy Mine: Oh, Tom, why are you talking about rewriting Enemy Mine. one of the funniest unintentional comedies ever? It just seems that with two strong actors like Quaid and Gossett, the film could be better as a character study with action than a loud stab at message sci-fi. As it is, I often can't stop giggling when I think of the adolescent alien wishing he had "bive bingers."

Subway: The first Luc Besson film I ever saw. I'd wanted to see Le Dernier Combat but didn't get to (and still haven't), but I saw that Besson did this film afterward and I was intrigued. It's flaky and totally French, but due to its setting in the Paris Metro, I think it could make that rare French-to-American remake that would work well.