Because I write approximately 200 movie news stories a month, I tend to spend a lot of time reading, writing and learning about remakes. Hell, I just went on a rant about them a little over an hour ago. The remakes that confuse me the most, however, are the ones that really only exist in name only. Take for example the Sam Raimi-produced remake of The Evil Dead that is currently in the works. Bruce Campbell recently revealed that the movie won't include the franchise's most iconic character, Ash. So what separates the new movie from just being another cabin in the woods horror flick? There's nothing wrong with taking a familiar concept and developing it as an independent project without the crutch of name recognition. Such is the case for a new film in development over at Universal, according to Deadline.

According to the site, the studio is now developing a project similar to Scarface - both the 1983 and 1932 versions - but the movie won't be a remake or a sequel. Instead, the film will simply follow an immigrant who moves to the United States and becomes powerful in the criminal underworld. Universal has already begun taking meetings with writers for the project and both Marc Shmuger and Martin Bregman (who worked on the Brian De Palma picture) are attached as producers. They are not yet revealing where the anti-hero is going to come from.

I can see both the positive and negative sides of this development. If writers aren't told that they have to stick close to an original property, they will have more freedom to be inventive and create interesting characters, plot points and conflicts. On the other hand, however, it would be horrific if the future of creativity in Hollywood is limited to making movies vaguely similar to other movies while avoiding the label of "remake." I guess we'll have to see who they hire to write and direct.