We haven't quite reached the point where anyone's talking about remaking The Goonies, but we're a step closer this morning, with the news that Paramount have put a team to work on a new version of Joe Dante's **Explorers{
Dante made Explorers in 1985, in between Gremlins and Innerspace, giving River Phoenix and Ethan Hawke their film debuts in the process and showing an impressive eye for upcoming talent. The story involves three kids (Jason Presson was the third; where's he now?) who manage to create a spaceship out of a dodgem car and travel to a distant galaxy for some family-rated alien adventures.
ILM did the special effects and Rob Bottin did the creatures, but Dante says the film was rushed through production and never properly completed. It tanked on its initial release but picked up a loyal following of '80s kids on VHS.
As a compromised movie maybe it's actually ripe for "fixing" with a remake, although there are many who love the original for all its flaws and are already howling in protest.
Josh Appelbaum and Andre Nemec (the Ghost Protocol guys) are driving the project for Paramount as producers, with Geoff Moore and Dave Posamentier (the Better Living Through Chemistry team) set to write the screenplay. Decisions on director, cast and start-date are some way off, pending an actually finished script. So hey, the new Explorers is already doing better than the old one - but good luck getting another cast like that one.