Is Nothing Sacred?

We all know they've been rehashing old scripts for years but now Hollywood isn't even going to bother with remaking the classics of the past. With only the help of tip top technology, Dreamworks honchos Steven Spielberg and Jeffrey Katzenberg are simply going to insert Mike Myers along with other actors and new plots in already existing films. Called "film sampling," the studio has defended this blatant plundering of the archive by comparing it to the now common process in the music business where an artist pinches a well-known and successful tune, works a little bit of their own work in there and hey presto, comes us with a completely 'new' track. Only the presence of Spielberg and Myers in this sorry project has dampened down the raging ire of all at Empire Online. A dab hand at reinventing the best of film past in both Bond spoof Austin Powers and the disarmingly silly homage to The Graduate in Wayne's World 2, we might begrudgingly admit that Myers might just have the originality to get away with it. "Film sampling is an exciting way to put an original spin on existing films and allow audiences to see old movies in a new light," Myers told Variety. "Rap artists have been doing this for years with music, and now we are able to take that same concept and apply it to film." And he's not the first to do it either. Woody Allen created new dialogue for a Japanese film and released it as What's Up, Tiger Lily in 1966 and umpteens of commercials have used the process to up the sales of assorted products as beer, drinks and hoovers. Austin Powers helmer Jay Roach has been enlisted to direct but there's no word yet as to which silver screen classic the talents will pillage. But steel yourselves, it might get painful.