'Dirty Dancing' Remake Puts Baby in a Corner...Again

Yep, it looks like they're remaking Dirty Dancing. Pretty shocking. First, the details: Production weekly, which has been really, really wrong about some news in the past year, claims that Lionsgate is heading back to the Catskills with writer Julia Dahl set to rework the original script. And that's about it for what we know. Earlier this week, Lionsgate picked up the comic book adaptation, Kick-Ass, which could not look much cooler, and that news came on the heels of Lionsgate actually turning a profit in the second quarter, something the studios have struggled with this year, when compared to last year's earnings. So for a fleeting moment, it looked like The House That Tyler Perry and Jigsaw Built had found a groove. But this is troubling news. It's not because I have any special place in my heart or memory for Dirty Dancing, because I certainly don't. But it's impossible to not recognize that the movie was and remains very special for lots of movie fans. And, to the film's credit, it got there organically. Nobody was betting on a soundtrack of 25-year-old songs, Jennifer Grey, and journeyman Patrick Swayze to produce a massive hit. That's why the movie cost $6 million and made a quarter-billion around the world. The two soundtracks sold almost 15 million combined. The point is, its success wasn't and couldn't have been predicted, which means in a very real way that it can't be replicated just because you deem it so. On the flip side, maybe this remake will make a lot of money, but that wasn't really the point of the first one. Unlike a lot of summer blockbusters, Dirty Dancing was designed, actually, to be a little smaller, and then it just exploded. On a lot of remakes, I ask myself the question, "Would re-releasing the original be just as effective or profitable?" I think in this case it would be a resounding yes.