You have $150 million to make one Civil War movie - make a realistic pitch.

Remakes are such a big thing nowadays, with it being viewed as a guaranteed way for a film to make money whether its good or bad, so how about a remake of, (drum roll)...

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly!!!!!

Or better yet...

Santa Fe Trail!!!

(Just a word warning, I'm jesting, don't tar and feather me on the Santa Fe Trail lol.)

No one can replace Clint. Jeff Bridges did ok for John Wayne in True Grit but purists like me prefer the original.
Oh and by the way, the remake of the Civil War Movie "The Beguiled" SUCKED! The PC female director Copula spoiled it as well as making it a less believable story and softened the very edges that made the first one great!
 
No one can replace Clint. Jeff Bridges did ok for John Wayne in True Grit but purists like me prefer the original. Oh and by the way, the remake of the Civil War Movie "The Beguiled" SUCKED! The PC female director spoiled it as well as making it a less believable story and softened edges that made the first one great!.
And not just Clint--Eli Wallach and Lee Van Cleef, too!

Confession: Tuco is basically one of my all-time favorite movie characters. I liked him so much I named a dog after him. :giggle:
 
No one can replace Clint. Jeff Bridges did ok for John Wayne in True Grit but purists like me prefer the original.
Oh and by the way, the remake of the Civil War Movie "The Beguiled" SUCKED! The PC female director Copula spoiled it as well as making it a less believable story and softened the very edges that made the first one great!

Yeah that True Grit remake was horrible. The dialog killed it, along with what's-his-name trying way to hard to mimic Jeff Corey's Tom Chaney instead of imparting his own take on the character.

On a side note, I did not know there was a remake of The Beguiled now I wonder if it was as bad as the original.

But getting back, yeah we need Matt Damon as "Blondy" and Nicholas Cage as "Tuco". :rofl:
 
You're killing my soul, man!:cry::frantic::giggle:

And Tom Selleck as "Angel Eyes"!

But lets not stop there! CW's too controversial so we'll move it to Indian Wars and they're racing to save an Indian tribe from the cavalry instead of chasing gold!:bounce:

I'mma do it! I'll call a producer/writer friend who love writing such things and suggest it!:byebye:
 
Hollywood likes remakes, because they think there's a built-in audience that has seen the original and wants to draw comparisons. It's not bold or original, of course.

There's a lot of real creative people in Hollywood, but its exactly as you said. The phrase I've heard most often is "Built in Market" and its exactly as you said. The reasoning being is whether its bad or not it'll make a pile of money.

EDIT- Plus a lot of directors and writers love to add they're ideas to a classic, I personally don't care for remakes, but I can't blame someone for wanting to do their own take.
 
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The experiences and words of many a CW veteran are at our fingertips. Though their spirits have flown, and bodies rotted to dust, we only need to open a book to hear their words and learn their experiences. One must only pick up a memoir or mass printed diary, of course if that's too much one can only look in an app store or whatever to get a copy for free. Many a CW vet wrote down their experiences, and most of them can tell more of their story on paper better than many a living WW2 vet. While not all CW memoirs or diaries are created equal, (some packed full of inaccuracies due to age and mis-remembering, no different than any veteran at any age for we are human), they are what we have, and our a treasure absorb.

Most folks don't watch a WW2 movie for historical education, they watch for entertainment, and could care less. Never did, never will, that is the tragedy of our time.

Another CW item I'd like to add that would be good to see if adapted to the big screen, Destruction and Reconstruction.

You are absolutely right.
That's a a little cherrypicked and you left out Glory which got 8.2 on IMDB. I mean there are big budget WWII flops, like Pearl Harbor with its $140 million budget in 2001 that was universally panned and has 6.1 on IMDB. However apparently it still did make $450 million at the box office so that is something, not like *Gods and Generals* which straight up lost $50 million. But there a lot of great war movies that don't have ridiculously huge budgets. Platoon had a budget of $6 million in 1986 which still comes to only about $14 million today and there is Clint Eastwood's Letters from Iwo Jima with a $19 million budget that got 7.9 on IMDB and is a great movie either way. I wish there could be more Civil War movies like Platoon or Letters from Iwo Jima.

Edit: Also the Alamo movie on that list had a budget of over $100 million ($145 million today) yet it still flopped. I think it's a good movie but I can see why a lot of people didn't. It's kind of slow and disjointed.



No offense but I tried watching Wicked Spring again just a few days ago and in my opinion it's not a good movie movie. The opening battle scene has pretty good production values and I was enjoying it but as soon as the story starts progressing I thought the movie just got really boring and cliched and didn't make much sense. Why wouldn't they even think to ask what unit each other are from? That's the first thing soldiers would ask if they were separated from their units. The ending scene where they all get killed between the two armies is pretty ridiculous. It could have been a good movie but I think it really needed a better script.
Band of Brothers shouldn't count it's a mini series. If someone took the budget from Band of Brothers and created a Civil War mini series based on events or battles posted in this chat, I think it would get good reviews.
 
Grant at Vicksburg. It ends with a surrender, not a battle.
Grant, Grant's family, Sherman, Porter, Davis in Richmond, spies, blacks helping the US and fleeing slavery. Endless possibilities.
Including a slave giving Grant a map lesson on the east bank landings on the Mississippi.
Do any fighting in documentary style.
You could include even Lee commenting on the news that Grant had cut in behind Pemberton and reconnected to the Yazoo River as an indication that Vicksburg will probably have to surrender.
 
I would like to see a movie or mini series based on the life of Frederick Douglass. For action sequences the series could follow his son Lewis Douglass and the 54th Massachusetts. Even though they are older now, maybe even bring back the cast from Glory to reprise their roles. Special effects and make up can do wonders nowadays and with a $150 million budget it would be no problem.
 
After reading William Marvel's The Alabama and the Kearsarge: The Sailor's Civil War, I could easily imagine it as a miniseries, alternately taking place on board the Union and then the Confederate ship, with the final battle off Cherbourg as the climax. Marvel had enough sailors' stories to work with that I could almost imagine being on board as a part of the crew.
 
I still like Grant at Vicksburg. Grant would make a rare speech: the Confederates are defeated. The best path for them to resume their role as citizens and to follow the law is to allow them to disperse with the knowledge that it will be possible to survive the war and be accepted back in the US.
Further: no Confederates should be allowed to linger within our lines, but anyone wishing to pass through on his way home should be shown respect.
 
I still like Grant at Vicksburg. Grant would make a rare speech: the Confederates are defeated. The best path for them to resume their role as citizens and to follow the law is to allow them to disperse with the knowledge that it will be possible to survive the war and be accepted back in the US.
Further: no Confederates should be allowed to linger within our lines, but anyone wishing to pass through on his way home should be shown respect.

I like a "biopic" about Grant: Start with Lee's surrender, then flash back to his boyhood, time at West Point, and all of his failures. Many scenes come to mind: his horsemanship at West Point, marriage to the daughter of a rich slave owner, failure at farming, working moving tanned hides for his father, waiting outside of McClellan's tent, saying "we'll get 'em tomorrow" after the first day of Shiloh, the many failures at Vicksburg before the siege, etc. etc. His life is a series of dramatic scenes.

Or you could start with him writing his autobiography as he was succumbing to cancer, with the entire movie a flashback. I would gloss over his presidency
 
I recently read a fascinating book about John Wilkes Booth's family. It would make a very interesting movie. Focus on the two brothers: Edwin Booth, famous and popular actor, union sympathizer, dined with Seward and close friend of Adam Badeau. His younger brother John Wilkes, much less talented and disciplined but more physically attractive and imposing, impulsive, beloved by the ladies, a rake. There was a rivalry between them that grew over the years, especially as Edwin banned his brother from playing in the lucrative Northern States, assigning him to play in the South where he would not get in Edwin's way. The rivalry between the brothers echoed the rivalry in within the country. At one point they worked together, along with a third brother, Junius Brutus Junior ("June") to put on a series of performances to benefit union troops. During the course of the performances the animosity between the two brothers increases, pushing John Wilkes into a resentful rage.
 
I like a "biopic" about Grant: Start with Lee's surrender, then flash back to his boyhood, time at West Point, and all of his failures. Many scenes come to mind: his horsemanship at West Point, marriage to the daughter of a rich slave owner, failure at farming, working moving tanned hides for his father, waiting outside of McClellan's tent, saying "we'll get 'em tomorrow" after the first day of Shiloh, the many failures at Vicksburg before the siege, etc. etc. His life is a series of dramatic scenes.

Or you could start with him writing his autobiography as he was succumbing to cancer, with the entire movie a flashback. I would gloss over his presidency

I like the idea of a Grant biopic too (and I believe there is one in the making by Appian Way.) The challenge is to find the best focal point.

Grant and Sherman would be one way to go. Both looking in from the outside at the beginning of the War - when Sherman was "crazy" and Grant was "drunk." Sherman, long out of the army, gets a commission through his family connections but is soon believed to be out of his mind because he quickly comes to the absurd conclusion that hundreds of thousands of troops will be needed to put down the rebellion. Sherman knows Southerners, spent the last year before the war teaching at a military academy in Louisiana, but no one is listening. Grant, also years away from his army days, cooling his heels outside McLellan's headquarters, patient, perhaps aware that McLellan is keeping alive the old stories about that time on the Oregon Coast. McLellan doesn't even give him the time of day.

They've met before at West Point. Grant remembers the outgoing redhead a couple of years ahead of him who riffed on the initials "U S" and settled on the name "Sam Grant." Sherman remembers the shy younger boy, still not fully grown, the horse whisperer.

Separately they make their way through the ranks, Sherman begging Lincoln not to put him in charge of anything, Grant taking any opportunity he gets in between the many changes in command in the West to actually attack something.

Shiloh is their trial by fire and where they bond. Both have a lot to prove. After the first day's battle Sherman approaches Grant, who is standing under a tree all night because he can't sleep and has to listen to the cries of the dying and wounded. Sherman is about to mention retreat, but something about Grant stops him, so he just says "We've had the devil's own day." "Lick 'em tomorrow," is Grant's reply.

After that they are besties. What do they talk about in their tents and how do they bond? Sherman talks Grant out of resigning from the army after Shiloh. Other officers observe a reunion between them with great relish - like two schoolboys getting together.

Arguing over the approach to Vicksburg, but amicably. Sherman wants to retreat and regroup, Grant wants to press on. When Grant's star rises, does Sherman have any regrets about asking to always be second in command? How does he feel about Grant's move east?

Then Sherman's own meteoric rise as he takes Atlanta and Savannah. A meeting on the River Queen with Lincoln, so different now.

Sherman's humiliation when his surrender terms with Johnston are rejected and Grant takes on the job of breaking it to him, but the situation is inflamed by Stanton going to the press and accusing Sherman of treason.

Sherman begging Grant not to go into politics. It won't suit him. He knows his friend. A growing apart during Grant's presidency over many issues.

While Grant is dying Sherman leads an initiative to get Congress to restore his army pension, which he lost when he took the presidency, so that his widow Julia will not be destitute.

A last sad meeting between the two men shortly before Grant's death.
 
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