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Everyone Should Stop Making Remakes and Sequels (and Make Ripoffs Instead)
Columbia Pictures
OK. Let's say that Richard Dreyfuss' offices never write back in any sort of constructive or non-threatening way. Does that mean you can't make a Jaws sequel? Perhaps -- but maybe that's actually better.
From the wife-beater-wearing, submachine-gun-toting hero listening to terrorists on walkie talkies, to the condescending family member, to the "wrong place at the wrong time" plot device -- White House Down is basically just a Die Hard movie, something the filmmakers made no effort to hide. Only, luckily for everyone, White House Down isn't actually a Die Hard sequel. Had it been, it probably would have been rewritten according to a scrawling booklet of drunk Bruce Willis ransom notes and shot exclusively on a green screen with him in a sitting position the whole time. Everyone watching it would have felt some deep level of despair as they subconsciously compared it to the earlier films. But, instead of that, the filmmakers opted to reach into their bag of tricks and pull out one of the oldest and bestest tools of the trade: just ripping off some other shit.
Columbia Pictures
"Now I have a film premise Ho-Ho-Ho."
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