I always thought that nobody liked Drop Dead Fred. Even as a kid, when I liked everything, I knew this movie was terrible. It stars Phoebe Cates way past her pinup days, prominently features Rik Mayall, who is so obnoxious he almost ruins The Young Ones at times, and it involves some of the most childish slapstick ever put on film. It pretty much tanked at the box office, opening in sixth place (though it at least had a better per-screen average than both third-place Hudson Hawk and fourth-place Only the Lonely). Its Rotten Tomatoes score is 9%, and its IMDb rating is less than 5. Yet, as with any movie Hollywood decides to remake, people are whining. Really? At this rate, I believe that even if someone announced a remake of SuperBabies: Baby Geniuses 2 we’d see complaints about it online.

All I can say is that Universal has picked the perfect person to fill Mayall’s shoes, because Russell Brand is definitely this generation’s most annoying British comedian. What they shouldn’t do, though, is say this new version is going to be more like Beetlejuice. It’s going to be very easy for them to outdo the original DDF, and I applaud Hollywood for trying to improve on a failure for once, especially when it fits with a quote from the film (”You see when something’s not working right, the best thing to do is tear it apart to make it better.”). But there’s no sense comparing this to Tim Burton’s masterpiece. That’s absolutely the wrong way to pitch this thing.

Read what others are saying about this latest remake announcement after the jump.

• Quint at Aint It Cool News suggests Natalie Portman for the Cates role, and agrees that this is the kind of movie Hollywood should be remaking:
  

  I guess it makes a little bit of sense… I mean, people have been saying if you’re going to remake something, remake something that you can improve, a concept that wasn’t fully explored. And the idea of an imaginary friend returning to you in your adulthood, as your world crumbles around you, trying to help and only causing more trouble is a good idea.

• Rob Hunter at Film School Rejects also sees potential in this thing:
  

  Remakes aren’t inherently a bad thing (The Thing, The Fly), and if a film can be improved upon in some noticeable way then a remake should be welcomed by film fans. Drop Dead Fred is a bad movie. Painfully unfunny and annoying even. Sure sure, some people may call it “perfect” but these same people also go to bed with a different “imaginary friend” every night so there’s probably a conflict of interest there somewhere…

• Commenting at Movieweb, “Remy72883″ disagrees immensely:
  

  STOP BUTCHERING CLASSIC FILMS, GROW A FUCKING BRAIN AND COME UP WITH AN IDEA, GOD GAVE YOU WISDOM, AND THIS IS WHAT YOU DO WITH IT, RIP OF A CLASSIC AND TURN IT INTO YOUR OWN. STOP FUCKING WITH CLASSIC’S AND MAKE YOUR OWN.

• Commenting at RopeofSilicon, “JM” likes the idea, but then, he has nothing to compare it to:
  

  I have no idea what “Drop Dead Fred” is about, but I like the way Universal is thinking. Meaning: if you need to remake a film, why not go after the ones that weren’t so great the first time around and make them better? If they’re great the first time around, we’d rather watch them and not the remakes.

• Amos Barshad at Vulture apparently loved the original and loves the idea of a remake:
  

  As the report notes, Fred was a commercial and critical failure, but for some reason we’d seen it something like 300 times before we turned 11, so we can’t freaking wait for this.

• Margaret Lyons at Entertatinment Weekly’s PopWatch is also excited, but has demands:
  

  Snotfaces, I am all over this remake of Drop Dead Fred starring Russell Brand on two conditions: One, they keep the gag where Fred’s face gets flattened out in the refrigerator (favorite!); and two, Phoebe Cates be involved at least in some capacity — we don’t see enough of her, and she is awesome.

• Commenting at that blog, though, “Jaclyn pulice” (aka Sassypants at everyday sassypants) brings our attention to an online petition against the remake:
  

  FRED WOULD THINK THIS WAS NAMBY PAMBY. I am anti the re-make and have started the official online anti-remake petition please read about it here and sign the petition.
  http://everydaysassypants.blogspot.com/2009/04/drop-dead-fred-remake-petition.html

• Elisabeth Rappe at MTV Movies Blog doesn’t understand the benefit of remaking bad movies:
  

  There will undoubtedly be some “Fred” fans upset by the news of a Brand makeover, but I think most of us will simply wonder why even the bombs of the ’80s and ’90s are being dug up and brushed off for moviegoers.

• Sean at Film Junk has doubts that Universal will do any better the second time around, unless they really go all out for a Beetlejuice feel:
  

  I’m not sure how many people remember this movie, but it wasn’t all that successful then, and I can’t see it being a big hit now either…Sign up Tim Burton as a director and I just might be interested.

• Rodney at The Movie Blog doesn’t foresee improvement either. In response to one of his rules for remakes, “The story would benefit from a modern telling,” he writes:
  

  This is the pants kicker for me. I don’t think it would BENEFIT from a modern retelling. Aside from the fashion sence that said bold busy patterns and padded shoulders were in, this movie will pretty much be the same if told in a modern retelling. I do like that they want to hit up a broader concept that imaginary friends come from a parellel existance and have “rules” and such, but that too was touched on in the original.

• Dustin Rowles at Pajiba agrees with me that Brand “was born to be this level of obnoxious,” and shares a sad story about why he really, really doesn’t like the original:
  

  I worked up the nerve to ask this young lady to go to the movie with me, convinced that we were somehow meant to be. To my surprise, she actually said yes. And we agreed to go see “Drop Dead Fred” together. I’d already seen “Drop Dead Fred,” and I despised it, but it was all that was playing at our local theater.

  Anyway, she stood me up. And I was left, again, to watch “Drop Dead Fred,” and no amount of Phoebe Cates could make Rik Mayall a bearable presence. That movie was a big old hemorrhoid pile of bloody suck.

• Alex Billington at First Showing finds Brand too annoying to even watch him play annoying:
  

  While more remakes are never good, and I won’t be supporting this one, I’m intrigued by Universal’s fascination with Russell Brand. Do people really like him that much? He was fine as an asshole in Sarah Marshall, but I don’t care to see more of him.

• Somehow in a week in which we’re all scared shitless about swine flu, Michelle Collins at Best Week Ever sees this as proof that the end is upon us? Also Quint beat her to the Little Monsters reference:
  

  Sign of the Apocalypse #20129: Universal Studios is remaking Drop Dead Fred starring Russell Brand. Which means that Little Monsters remake can’t be too far off. Buff those horns, Howie!

• Mark at I Watch Stuff also mentions that other “classic”:
  

  wouldn’t combining an imaginary friend movie with the tone and universe of Beetlejuice just end up creating a remake of the Fred Savage/Howie Mandel monster-under-the-bed thesis Little Monsters? I think Universal bought the wrong rights.

• Commenting at Movieline, “JUDGEFUDGE” goes so far as to cast that remake:
  

  The only thing that could be worse than this would be a remake of Little Monsters with Dane cook and Jaden Smith.