2017 will be the Year of Franchise Revivals

Hollywood has been known to have a habit of “reusing old content”, poring the same tried and tested stories and characters into an updated form. It has been done in the past – think of the repeated return of movie monsters like the Terminator, Godzilla, Frankenstein’s creation, Dracula, and many others to the silver screen and beyond. Hollywood filmmakers have routinely reached back into the distant past for a few dollars more (forgive the pun). This year, in turn, they are returning to more recent productions for inspiration (or due to the lack of it), reviving franchises that have lived their life to the fullest in the past, especially in the horror genre. Let’s see what new scares are to be expected to hit the silver screen this year.

Alien: Covenant

Prometheus was loved by many but hated by Alien fans, mostly because it wasn’t an “Alien” movie. It was a great movie, as many sci-fi fans agree, happening in the “Aliens” universe, with more in common with it than the “AvP” movies we’ve had the occasion to see. The “Alien” franchise gave us one of the most iconic movie monsters ever, and inspired many “side tracks”, including video games, novels, comic books, even one of the top pokie games of all time. Time has shown us that messing with it is not a good idea. Hopefully, in this year’s “Alien: Covenant”, the franchise finally returns to its gory, pressing roots. You can watch the trailer here.

The Mummy

The Mummy was the monster in almost a dozen feature films before Steven Sommers’ version with a lighter, more adventurous tone. Few people know that the remake would have been directed by Clive Barker of Hellraiser fame in a much more pressing and violent manner. Sommers’ version had action and comedy, and it lived to become a trilogy with a fourth movie cancelled. Fortunately, I must say, because it has lost most of its momentum (and the female lead) after the second movie.

This year The Mummy returns to its horror roots. The director, Alex Kurtzman, has written and produced numerous popular movies and TV series in the past – think Star Trek Into Darkness, Cowboys and Aliens, and cult classics like Hercules and Xena. When it comes to the big screen, he doesn’t have too much experience, though.

The Mummy will be the first in a series of Universal Monsters movies, all happening in a shared universe.

Dead things Hollywood shouldn’t play with

A refreshed version of Friday The 13th will be released this October (you guessed it, on the 13th, and it will be a Friday). This will be the second attempt to revive the immortal serial killer – the previous attempt was a failure. Jason lived a full live, and now he’s gone – he shouldn’t be brought back to the silver screen a 13th time.

Neither should Michael Myers, Charles Lee Ray, Leatherface or Fred Krueger, for that matter. Still, all of them will return to the silver screen once again: you can expect to see titles like Halloween: The Night Evil Died, Cult of Chucky, First Kill: An Elm Street Legend, and the suggestively titled Leatherface. All this in 2017.

What revival / remake / reboot are your looking forward to and which ones should be left well alone?