We’ve been living in the age of remakes for a long time now, but it would be a bold move on anybody’s part to remake the remake of an adaptation that lives forever in infamy as one of Hollywood’s most troubled productions ever, but a compelling case has emerged that The Island of Dr. Moreau has already been reinvented several times over without anybody noticing.
H.G. Wells’ iconic sci-fi story was the subject of an infamous 1996 do-over that lost a fortune at the box office, took a pasting from critics, and landed six Razzie nominations, and that’s without mentioning Marlon Brando’s disruptive antics on set, the firing of director Richard Stanley three days into shooting, Val Kilmer causing chaos with his behavior, and Stanley sneaking back onto set dressed as an extra that ended up giving him an uncredited cameo in the end product.
It’s nuts to put it lightly, and might help explain why a Reddit thread questioning why the tale of the titular scientist hasn’t been re-told in the last three decades. And yet, the comments and replies put an even more fascinating conceit forward; it has been, several times in fact, but nobody noticed.
One user suggested Alex Garland’s Ex Machina as a “savvy update,” pointing out “the brave new science is AI instead of genetics,” leading to another having their mind blown by admitting “it’s pretty obvious but until you laid it out like that I never would have noticed it.” Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams also gets a mention for obvious reasons, as does The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen graphic novel, Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3, and even Orphan Black, all of which hold at least some degree of water.
Do we really need to see The Island of Dr. Moreau once more, then, or can we survive with bits and pieces of its DNA being mined for much better projects instead?