NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > TELEVISION OFFICIALS UP IN ARMS OVER POTENTIAL POLTERGEIST REMAKE

TELEVISION OFFICIALS UP IN ARMS OVER POTENTIAL POLTERGEIST REMAKE

June 7 2009

Los Angeles, CA – In 1940 the first ever advertisement was placed on commercial television. The $4 ad from Bulova, placed before the broadcast of a Dodgers-Phillies game marked the beginning not only of modern advertising but also the growth of a medium now so ubiquitous that many people can’t imagine a time before it existed.
The rise of television as an entertainment medium, as a form for disseminating news, and for delivering advertisements to consumers changed the world forever. Now though with the rise of new mediums and the burden placed on advertisers by the global recession, Television is truly struggling for the first time.

Enter into that fray a new threat in the form of a ghost story. Much like the return of the deceased to haunt the living, a movie that tacitly condemned television has returned to haunt the medium once more. As talk of a remake of the classic ghost story Poltergeist – which revolves around spirits sucking a small girl into the family television set – network officials are petitioning the studio behind the production to halt work on the remake to avoid further damaging the life expectancy of the medium.

“We feel that the original film was a directed attack at the medium of television much more than it was a ghost story. Some look at it and say that the use of the television
was simply a plot device but the harsh reality is that television has always been a significant threat to the viability of the film industry and that film articulated that threat and the film industries continued fear of television,” said a network executive who preferred to remain anonymous. “By remaking that film they are not only dredging up those harsh memories but they are hitting our industry when it is weak. That constitutes a mortal threat to television and a deliberate attempt to devalue our brand. It would be much easier and much more timely to go after say the internet and just leave television alone.”

The remake is currently in the development stages and it is not yet clear what form the refreshed storyline will take. The majority of television networks are owned by or share the same parent company as movie studios, which was not the case in 1982.

“It’s extremely unlikely that Steven Spielberg or Tobe Hooper conspired to create an assault on the entire television industry. Odds are they hashed through the story and found this convenient plot device that would service the needs of the story and utilized it to construct the film,” said Scrape TV Entertainment analyst Tracey Temple. “Spielberg in particular had his start in television
and had a heavy investment in the medium so that makes it even less likely that he constructed an entire movie as an assault against the medium. Sure the film casts television in a poor light but it doesn’t really suggest that television itself is evil or possessed by ghosts, but rather that those forces manipulated a common household item in order to gain the trust of a young girl and torment a family.”

The remake is currently slated to be released in 2011. The current economic crisis is expected to be over long before that time, allowing television to regain some of its lost advertising dollars.

“The unfortunate reality for television is that its days may be numbered already. Television programming has moved to the web and new content being created there as well as the increasing popularity of video games is likely going to push the medium further into irrelevancy,” continued Temple. “It’s also very unlikely that a ghost story that very few people are likely to see will do significant damage to the medium. Of course this could also be an orchestrated marketing ploy, though it is a little early for a movie people have likely already forgotten about.”

Internet officials haven’t responded to the suggestion that it be used as a vessel for evil.         

Samantha Dryden, Entertainment Correspondent

NEWS > ENTERTAINMENT > TELEVISION OFFICIALS UP IN ARMS OVER POTENTIAL POLTERGEIST REMAKE