Stars Who Trashed Reboots Of Their Work

It's hard to disagree with the common complaint that there are no original ideas left in Hollywood. In 2018, Den of Geek reported that there were no fewer than 142 sequels, remakes or reboots in the works. Barely a month goes by without the announcement of yet another superhero origins story. And on the list of America's highest-grossing Top 10 films of 2021 published half-way through the year, only one, "Raya and the Last Dragon," wasn't based on an existing property.

Of course, it's not only cinemagoers desperate to see a new idea at the multiplex who get frustrated at such a lack of imagination. Several actors, producers and directors have taken aim at Tinseltown's recycled approach, particularly when it comes to rebooting a hit that they've previously had a hand in.

From sci-fi icons to slasher legends, here's a look at 14 stars who had no qualms about trashing the films that dared to try and improve on their originals.

We'd like to have been a fly on the wall the next time Michael Caine saw Jude Law after his candid chat with The Independent in 2009. Although he was friends with the "Primrose Hill" alum — the pair had co-starred in a remake of "Sleuth" two years previously — the British acting legend didn't think twice about slating his turn in 2004's "Alfie."

Caine's performance as the London playboy in the 1966 original had helped cement his reputation as one of the decade's most charming leading men. But the two-time Oscar winner believed that his younger upstart lacked the innocence that enabled his character to get away with all his womanizing. He said, "At the end of the movie, Alfie says, 'What's it all about?' But the minute Jude walks on, you see a young man who knows exactly what everything is all about."

After claiming that his take on the titular character was far less self-aware, Caine continued, "Jude, being so knowing looking, looked like it was deliberate and it became sinister instead of funny. It just became some guy who doesn't care about women, he just screws them and leaves them — a male chauvinist pig, but with knowledge. I played an innocent male chauvinist pig."

"Space Jam" director Joe Pytka certainly didn't hold back when asked for his opinion on the 2021 reboot which saw LeBron James team up with Looney Tunes' finest to defeat a villainous A.I. "An uninteresting mess," was perhaps the kindest comment the octogenarian made about "A New Legacy" to TMZ.

Pytka claimed he needed five attempts to finish Malcolm D. Lee's mix of live-action and animation, argued that James didn't hold a candle to the original's basketball hero Michael Jordan and described the soundtrack as "insignificant" before insisting that its array of supporting characters lacked the star quality of Charles Barkley, Bill Murray and co.

Even the new Bugs Bunny couldn't escape Pytka's wrath, with the filmmaker remarking, "He looked like one of those fluffy dolls you buy at an airport gift shop to bring your kid when your business trip has taken too long." Most reviews appeared to align with Pytka's, with its Rotten Tomatoes rating hovering just below the 30% mark (Luckily, James appeared to handle the criticism well). However, although the original remains a favorite of '90s kids, its critical response wasn't that much more glowing — its RT rating stands at just 44%. 

"Who you gonna call?" Not Melissa McCarthy, Kate McKinnon and co. if you're one of the many "Ghostbusters" fans who deemed their reboot of the '80s classic to be sacrilegious. Yes, the 2016 comedy somehow caused more controversy than the entirety of Lars von Trier's oeuvre, with much of the backlash centered on the fact that director Paul Feig dared to have the ghostbusting team as (shock! horror!) all female!

Even the fact that several of the original's stars made cameos couldn't appease the disgruntled. Unfortunately, one such returnee, Ernie Hudson, gave all the naysayers even further ammunition four years later in an interview with Living Life Fearless. The actor said, "A reboot, to me, means you're trying to do the movie over. Another version of what we already did. And I think that was a mistake."

Hudson, who played Winston Zeddemore in the original and Uncle Bill Jenkins more than 30 years later, added, "It wasn't a continuation or an extension of. It was somehow a different universe there. You know what I mean? It's kind of like us, but it's us but not us." He went on to elaborate that a reboot comes with certain issues attached: "But like I said, it just felt like a retelling of the same story, which automatically causes comparisons that you really don't need to be doing."

For many loyal "Child's Play" fans, Don Mancini is as integral to the killer doll franchise as Chucky himself! The man not only penned the screenplays for its first seven installments, he also served as director for three of them and is currently working on a spin-off TV series, too. But when MGM-United Artists decided it wanted to rescue the murderous redhead from the VOD market, it tasked Tyler Burton Smith with penning the script and Lars Klevberg with taking the director's chair.

The studio did offer Mancini an executive producer credit but he essentially told them where to shove it. Indeed, according to Slate, the horror maestro went on the warpath after hearing the news he was surplus to requirements, imploring fans to share disparaging articles about the remake and regularly taking to Twitter to voice his displeasure.

And then during an appearance on the "Post Mortem" [58:54] podcast hosted by regular Stephen King collaborator Mick Garris, the disgruntled Mancini explained why he'd been left so hurt by the snub: "I did create the character and nurture the franchise for three f***ing decades." The UCLA graduate also claimed that his executive producer offer on the 2019 movie was a hollow gesture, adding, "They just wanted our approval, which I strenuously denied them ... It's not just a paycheck. It's very personal. MGM's screwing with that."

Following in the footsteps of "Charlie's Angels," "The Dukes of Hazzard" and "Starsky and Hutch," "The A-Team" became yet another guilty pleasure from yesteryear to get the Hollywood treatment in 2010. But pity the fool who believed that Dirk Benedict would give his seal of approval.

Admittedly, the actor who shot to global fame as the charming schemer Templeton 'Faceman' Peck in the 1980s series, did agree to make a brief cameo in the big screen adaptation. However, it was a role that he later told Birmingham Live he wishes he'd turned down: "You'll miss me if you blink. I kind of regret doing it because it's a non-part. They wanted to be able to be able to say: 'Oh yeah, the original cast are in it' but we're not. It is three seconds. It's kind of insulting."

Benedict, who was joined by former co-star Dwight Schultz, aka Howling Mad Murdock, for his insulting blink-and-you'll-miss-it appearance, didn't think much of the film's prospects overall, commenting, "They'll screw it up." "The A-Team" film, which saw Bradley Cooper take over from Benedict, did admittedly divide critics on its release. And although it made its $110 million budget back, 20^th Century Fox decided against making a planned sequel.

For many children of the '90s, the Power Rangers was the ultimate superhero franchise. And after two seasons of tokusatsu-inspired action, the series made it to the big screen for 1995's imaginatively-titled "Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: The Movie." A second big screen offering, "Turbo: A Power Rangers Movie," was hot on its heels in 1997. 

Of course, like nearly every superhero movie since "Batman Begins," 2017's "Power Rangers" was a much darker, and some would say less fun, affair than its source material. David Yost, who played the Blue Ranger Billy Cranston in the original, was one such detractor, telling ComicBook that the film failed to nail the right tone.

Yost, who was replaced in his most familiar role by RJ Cyler, said, "The only thing I care about progression wise when they do a sequel and they morph they better bring it and they better say 'It's Morphin Time.' When we said, 'It's morphing time!,' it was like, 'S**t's about to go down;' when they said it in the movie it was so lackadaisical I was like, 'Are you kidding me?'"

Combining futuristic sporting action with social commentary, "Rollerball" was one of the most interesting sci-fi films of the mid-1970s. And MGM were hoping to hit another slam dunk (or whatever the fictional game's equivalent is) more than 25 years later by serving up a much bloodthirsty remake.

While the 2002 version substituted original leading man James Caan for "American Pie" star Chris Klein, producers were initially hoping to bring back director Norman Jewison. But in a chat with the New York Post, the filmmaker explained that he had no interest in returning to former glories: "... I passed on it because it was clear they were embracing the violence [that] I used in the original to comment on the activities of multinational corporations." The director also revealed that he'd been invited by MGM to a screening but had little interest in accepting.

"Die Hard" director John McTiernan had no such qualms about embracing violence, although he no doubt now wishes he'd followed Jewison's lead. Indeed, his remake bombed at the box office, raking in less than $26 million of its $70 million budget, and is widely regarded as one of the worst films of the early 21^st century. (McTiernan even ended up in federal prison for allegedly wiretapping one of its producers).