Does the world really need a new Rocky Horror Picture Show?
 Since 1975, an adolescent rite of passage has been the first trip to a midnight showing of camp classic The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Armed with squirt guns, confetti, and various items of clothing more generally suited for the privacy of the bedroom, throngs of teenagers and young adults have made group viewings of the science-fiction musical a must-see event.
Which is why the news from MTV Studios of a planned remake of the film has been met with a mixture of disbelief and outrage. Writer and co-star of the original film Richard O’Brien has publicly expressed his obvious displeasure with the news, telling the BBC that he was not involved with the project in any way.
“I have no view on whether it should be remade, but it doesn’t have my blessing,” he sniffed.
What studio executives were thinking is a mystery to most, since in all honesty the original film was a cinematic train wreck. Shot on a shoestring budget of just over $1.2 million dollars, it starred a cast of then-unknowns who spent most of the film dancing around in their underwear in service of a near incomprehensible plot filled with more holes than a miniature golf course.
But the operating force in Hollywood is money. Considering that the original film has grossed more than $140 million in the past 33 years, one could surmise from looking at the balance sheet that this is a cinematic property worth its weight in gold. One would be wrong.
The true reason for the success of the film, as anyone who has ever attended one of the innumerable midnight screenings, has been the interactive nature of the experience. The audience has created their own dialogue to shout back at the screen, adventurous types dress up as the main characters to act out scenes in front of the screen, and while the script may be lacking, the true strength of the film lies in the catchy musical numbers sung by stars such as Tim Curry, Meat Loaf, and Richard O’Brien himself.
What has people particularly upset, aside from the lack of participation of the mad genius of O’Brien, is word that the producers are going to be writing new songs for the remake. In the “Rocky Horror” world, this is akin to adding new lines to a Shakespeare play, or adding new songs to a Beatles album written by a Hollywood music hack.
Not that Rocky-lovers are taking the news lying down. A group of determined fans has gone as far as to launch a professional-looking website called stoptheremake.com, where they are collecting signatures on a petition designed to convince MTV Films to leave bad enough alone. With limited publicity, the site has already garnered nearly 10,000 signatures.
Jim Sharman, the director of the original film, has taken a more diplomatic approach. “The original has some qualities that can’t be reproduced, but a remake could have its own very different strengths and qualities,” he said last week. Left unsaid was what those potential strengths and qualities could be.
Considering the long list of remakes of classic films that have flopped in recent years—Alfie, Pyscho and Solaris come immediately to mind—why would otherwise savvy people think investing in a “Rocky Horror” remake would be a financial success? For it has to be said that while Alfie, Pyscho and Solaris were good films to begin with, The Rocky Horror Picture Show remains a cinematic disaster saved only by a pre-cable and Internet young audience looking for something silly to do on a Friday night.
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