Baywatch/Power Rangers

As I’ve said before, who exactly were these films aimed at? People who liked the originals won’t want to watch these as tonally they’re completely different, and it wasn’t as though there was a huge demand for them. Now if they did it in the 90’s, that’s a different story. Those two shows were both at their peaks and films released at cinema based on those would have made big money. But 90’s was a weird time for TV films, they tended to have terrible reputations (not entirely because of all the terrible films based on Saturday Night Live skits, but they certainly didn’t help). The only one that comes to mind that REALLY worked was South Park, which seemed to be the tipping point for the show and changed it from “this show will cause harm to children” to “cultural icon”.

Kong

Ideal director: Roland Emmerich (again)

Again, why exactly was this made? This would have made A LOT more sense in the 90’s. Jurassic Park, Godzilla, and Dragonheart (google it) showed what could be done back then, and the capabilities of creating a realistic looking giant ape (which is trickier than other giant animals mainly due to the hair, seriously, hair is REALLY hard to animate without looking fake as hell) was possible on a fundamental level, as proven by that classic film, Mighty Joe Young. Come on, you know that film. Oh, you don’t? Nobody does? Oh, okay, maybe that’s why a Kong 90’s film wasn’t made.

Spiderman: Homecoming

Ideal director: John Hughes

Very specific time of the 90’s, early 90’s. John Hughes 90’s, that time when films aimed at children seemed to still be suffering from an 80’s hangover. The perfect time for this would have been around 1991. With Batman Returns about to be released, and with the success of the first live-action Batman still in minds, studios would have bought up more comic book properties and used them in unique ways. A Bush/Reagan-inspired ultra American Superman movie would have been made to try to make people try to forget about Quest For Peace, a Terry Gilliam Watchman would have been made, with David Bowie doing the soundtrack (and probably playing Dr. Manhatten), and to cater for teens a John Hughes Spiderman would have been made. Okay, it would have been better in the 80’s, and casting an 80’s Spiderman Homecoming is a whole different conversation altogether (that’s called foreshadowing).

Happy Death Day

This would have killed in the late 90’s. Just after Scream landed but before horror got all serious and torture-porn-ey. Probably with Sarah Michelle Gellar in the lead, with a soundtrack consisting of The Offspring and Blink 182. The more I think about this the more I think that would have been fucking awesome. Basically like Idle Hands, which is one of the most 90’s horror films I’ve ever seen in my life (and is quite funny).

 

Geostorm. 

Ideal director: Roland Emmerich

Here we go, the film that inspired this entire list. I showed someone the synopsis to this and their response was “are we sure this wasn’t made in the 90’s?”. Kind of cheating as this film was delayed horrifically and wasn’t originally meant to be released this year, although not massively cheating as it was supposed to be released in 2016, which wasn’t a massive difference, although it does explain the obvious reshoot moments. It’s not just the story where this is 90’s, a lot of the story beats seem to come straight from a 90’s perspective; English villain, a moment where a dog nearly (but doesn’t) die, a small child, a needlessly happy ending that seems to come out of nowhere and completely ruins the notion of self-sacrifice.