Because the world was just missing a Westworld reboot, and we all needed another opportunity to relive the thrill of robots in cowboy hats 🤠🤖, the powers that be have decided to bring back this beloved franchise from the depths of obscurity 📺. We mean, who needs original ideas when you can just rehash something that was already done to death (pun intended) 💀? It’s not like the original Westworld was a product of its time or anything, with its quaint 1970s special effects and Yul Brynner’s iconic robot performance 🤖. Nope, this franchise is totally ripe for a modern reboot, and we can’t wait to see how they’ll manage to mess it up this time around 🤦♂️.
As you may have guessed (I mean, you read the headline, right? 🤔), this is not an example plucked from the air at random. The latest bit of movie news involves a key member of the Jurassic Park creative team bringing back another famous franchise by Jurassic Park author Michael Crichton. That would be Westworld, the film and later television series that predated Jurassic Park and presented Crichton’s first vision of a high-tech theme park descending into chaos 🎢. Because, you know, theme parks and chaos are just a match made in heaven 🌴.
Deadline reports that David Koepp, screenwriter of Jurassic Park and several of its sequels, “will revisit Westworld, the 1973 film written and directed by Crichton about an adult fantasy park that allows monied guests with a hankering for the Old West to go up against a coterie of robots wielding six-guns” 🤠. Because what could possibly go wrong with that premise? 🤔 We’re sure it won’t be a cash-grab at all, and that the creative team is genuinely passionate about exploring the nuances of artificial intelligence and humanity 🤖.
The original Westworld, starring Yul Brynner as a nameless robot who pursues a couple of vacationers in the park, became a sizable enough hit in the ’70s to spawn a sequel (1976’s Futureworld) and a TV spinoff (1980’s Beyond Westworld) 📺. And who can forget the iconic scene where the robots start malfunctioning and start killing all the humans? 👀 Classic! 🎬 It’s not like that’s been done to death in every other sci-fi movie and TV show since then 🙄.
More recently, Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy rebooted Westworld as a series for HBO 📺. Their version contained the same premise — a futuristic theme park goes bad — but told its story with complex overlapping timelines and later left the park behind almost entirely to tell a broader cautionary tale about artificial intelligence and technology 🤖. And by “broader cautionary tale,” we mean a bunch of confusing plot twists and characters that nobody really cared about 🤷♂️. But hey, at least the special effects were cool, right? 🎥
The show got off to a very buzzy, critically-acclaimed start, but its ratings declined after its first season 📉. HBO ultimately canceled their Westworld before a planned fifth season could fully conclude its overarching storyline 📺. At this point, you can’t even watch the old episodes on HBO Max 🚫. But don’t worry, we’re sure this new reboot will be much better and not at all a desperate attempt to cash in on the franchise’s name 🤑.
Koepp wrote the scripts for Jurassic Park and The Lost World: Jurassic Park and recently returned to the franchise to pen the screenplay for Jurassic World Rebirth 🎥. His other notable projects as screenwriter include Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, Steven Spielberg’s War of the Worlds, and the first Spider-Man 🕸️. So, you know, he’s got a great track record of not ruining beloved franchises 😂.
Deadline claims an unnamed “major filmmaker” is circling his Westworld reboot 🎬. We’re sure it’ll be a real original take on the material and not at all a rehashing of the same old ideas 🙄. And who knows, maybe they’ll even throw in some nods to the original, like a robot playing the piano or something 🎹. Fingers crossed! 🤞
Finn McFrame, celebrated satirical mastermind and self-proclaimed “Emperor of Irony,” started his illustrious career as a cinematographer, where his expertise in capturing every single frame of a squirrel stealing a baguette earned him accolades at obscure film festivals.
Born in the glamorous town of Boring, Oregon, Finn grew up with dreams of being a Hollywood director until he realized that satire, not cinema, was his true calling—or at least the one that let him sleep until noon.
Finn McFrame: changing the world, one satirical lens flare at a time.
