Insidious - Cineworld - 30/4/11

a powerful studio executive sits alone in his office.  he is surrounded by piles of scripts.  he has a haunted look on his face.  in front of him sits a junior executive who looks equally haunted.

Studio Exec: We're screwed.

Junior: We can't be screwed JC...we ARE Hollywood.  We're the dream factory.  There must be something...

Studio Exec: Listen kid, I've been in this town for a long time.  I've seen bad times before.  Hell, I was the guy who green lit "True Lies" and "Waterworld"...both enormous pieces of crap that everybody hated and that cost a shit-load of money to make and yet we just kept on rockin' and rollin'.  You gotta trust me when I tell you that this is different.

Junior: It's only a recession boss, the economy will turn around...things will get better, you'll see.  We'll be back.

Studio Exec: We're screwed kid.  Screwed.

Junior: What about a remake?  They're cheap, stupid people like 'em and we can churn it out in double-quick time.  Hell, even the critics bought "True Grit".

Studio Exec:  Ha ha ha ha ha ha...they sure did kid, they sure did.  But the thing is...the public have had enough, they want something "new" and "new" costs money and money we don't got.

Junior:  What about a "re-imagining"...it's like a remake but we can cut out anything expensive and pitch it as "art-house"?

Studio Exec: God bless ya kid, you got hope in your heart but I'm telling you that we won't get that past the public no more.  They've seen through it...they can smell marketing bullshit from a hundred paces.

Junior:  Wait...wait...I think...yeah, yeah this might just...I GOT IT!

Studio Exec:  What?  What have you got?

Junior: How about I give you something that looks new, that we can sell as new, that won't cost us big bucks but is in fact a whole lot of ideas from other movies that we will do with less quality?

Studio Exec:  I'm listening...

Junior:  OK.  We take bits of old horror movies that haven't yet been remade, we shoe-horn in some truly shitty "special effects", throw in a bit of "Paranormal Activity" and BINGO-BANGO we are BACK!

Studio Exec:  You think you can pull it off?

Junior:  Of course...look, what about this for starters..."Poltergeist"; we take a kid, a cute kid, have it disappear and then have a medium show up to tell the family the kid is on the "other side"?

Studio Exec:  Isn't this just a remake?

Junior:  No, because we don't call it "Poltergeist" and we make the medium wear a gas mask!

Studio Exec:  Kid, you are either a genius or a madman...either way I dig it!  What else you got?

Junior:  Boss, I got a whole load of second hand, stolen and ill thought out ideas that we can wrap up in 90 minutes of movie and with a trailer that doesn't show any of that and plays on the "Paranormal Activity" angle we could get away with it!

Studio Exec:  You remind me a lot of me when I was you're age.  I like you kid.  Which is why you're fired.  Get the hell out of here.  Now, somebody get me Patrick Wilsons number...