The other day I posted a link to some news about how Hollywood is getting ready to spin Charles Dickens’ beloved rags-to-riches orphan child Oliver Twist off into some new adventures. From Heat Vision:
Taking a page out of the recent Robert Downey Jr.-starring Sherlock Holmes movies, Twist takes pickpocketing rivals Oliver Twist and Artful Dodger and re-imagines them 20 years down the road. The two are on opposite sides of the law and get embroiled in an affair to steal the Crown Jewels.
I’m not sure that that’s “taking a page” from Guy Ritchie’s Sherlock Holmes — his films don’t fundamentally change the character in a way that the author would no longer recognize. But this appears to suggest that Oliver is now some sort of police officer — which seems an unlikely destiny for the man of means we learn Oliver is at the end of the novel. Or else Oliver really is taking a page from Sherlock Holmes and has set up a detective agency. (Or else he’s gone back to a life of crime and the Artful Dodger is now a cop… which seems even less likely.)
What characters from classic literature would you reboot, and how would you do it?
I made a joke at link above about Oliver Twist, Werewolf Hunter. I’m not sure it’s any worse than Oliver Twist, Gentleman Detective.
Have fun.
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I liked the idea of the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, aligning all the Victorian horror/sci fi as a group of superheroes. But how about we look to Shakespeare. Macbeth: Witch Hunter. With Banquo as his reluctant ghost partner.
I don’t, as a rule, like reboots – if you want to tell a story about a genius detective who’s a recovering addict, I’d rather he not be called “Sherlock Holmes”.
That said, how about Dieselpunk Woodrow Wilson?
I want to see steampunk William Howard Taft, who solves crimes from his mobile, automated bathtub.
I say we do a turn-of-the-century Presidential team-up with the steampunk bathtub boy, Grover Cleveland able to split himself in two both physically and temporally, Teddy riding a Grizzly, and a silent levitating Wilson whose responses only come through his wife’s facilitation.
We could have a spin-off story in which Wilson teams up with Silent Calvin Coolidge.
I’d like to see a reboot of *anything* where the re-imagined character isn’t oppressively brooding (unless that’s the original source material calls for, i.e. Batman) or a narcissistic, smirking wise-ass.
Can they have a re-imagined classic character be shown as a well balanced, decent person? Or will they be automatically brushed off as a “Mary Sue” by today’s ultra-jaded audience?
i’d go for a john henry or paul bunyan flick.
McKinley is the martyred founder whose death in the second act brings the squabbling campaigners together as a team.
William Howard Taft, bounty hunter.