By FULLER ROYAL

Last year was a bad one for studios and theaters alike with box office grosses continuing a major decline. 2005 was a weak year for movies, both critically and financially and to me, it’s not hard to see why. The studios blame the theaters and the theaters blame the studios.

Well, they’re both at fault.

What is the deal with Hollywood? Have they completely run out of new, original ideas?
Hollywood released a record number of remakes last year and most of them were bad. Why remake a film in the first place? Most remakes fail miserably. And why remake a classic or a hit?

Walt Disney released “Herbie, Fully Loaded,” with star-of-the-moment Lindsay Lohan, a loose remake of 1969’s “The Love Bug” starring Disney perennial Dean Jones.
“Herbie” was awful and stunk at the box office. The original, 36 years earlier, was full of charm and humor and was the year’s box office champ.

Hollywood decided to revisit “The Bad News Bears.” Again, a travesty. How can anyone top Walter Matthau’s Coach Morris Buttermaker, a role written for especially him by Burt Lancaster’s screenwriting son Bill Lancaster.

Look at all of the other remakes of hits that failed miserably.

“The Manchurian Candidate,” “Oliver Twist,” “The Fog,” “Your, Mine and Ours,” “The Stepford Wives,” “The Longest Yard,” “Bewitched,” “The In-laws,” “The Ladykillers,” “The Amityville Horror,” “Psycho” and “Fun with Dick and Jane.”

As as much as I like Steve Martin, I can’t help but think that his new version of “The Pink Panther” will bomb.

There was and is only one Inspector Clouseau and that’s the late, great Peter Sellers.

Another remake coming up is “The Poseidon Adventure.” Are people stupid? This Paul Gallico story was the first novel I ever read. “Poseidon” rates in my personal top-10 film list. It was extremely well-made and featured a cast full of Oscar winners and a really good script by Stirling Silliphant.

I will admit that the trailer for the new “Poseidon” looks good with Kurt Russell and Richard Dreyfuss. The effects will be masterful. But it all boils down to story.

What possesses actors and directors to touch films and roles that are considered the holy grails?

Now, there have been remakes that have been huge hits, and that’s what drives the remake fever.

Take “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” I am a Tim Burton fan and a Johnny Depp fan. I enjoyed this remake of “Willa Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” and was certainly impressed with Freddie Highmore as Charlie. It’s a good film and I enjoyed the quirkiness of it, although I thought Depp came off as a little too much “Michael Jackson.”

Gene Wilder’s 1971 version will always be my favorite. I grew up with that. And, pound for pound, allowing for inflation, the first version actually did better at the box office.

Another remake hit was Steven Spielberg’s, “War of the Worlds.” The special effects were magnificent. To watch one of the machines rise up from beneath a city street was terrifyingly good.

And, like him or not, Tom Cruise’s acting was one of his best efforts while youngster Dakota Fanning again proved her acting chops. Spielberg took a classic and gave it the horror it needed, even if the ending was weak.

While on the subject of Spielberg, last month, it was rumored that he would remake Walt Disney’s masterpiece “Mary Poppins.” They were just that: rumors. However, I think the Disney studios remaking “Poppins” would be scandalous. I realize that the stage musical Mary Poppins has been a big hit in London, with half a dozen new songs added to the Sherman brothers originals.

“Mary Poppins” was the epitome of Walt Disney’s film career. That 1964 film brought together all of the elements that Disney pioneered and perfected. It was the icing on the cake of a 40-year career for the most Academy Award winning producer in Hollywood history.

To remake that is just sad.

And when directors or writers do have good ideas, they more often than not have terribly weak scripts. Movie after movie has been ruined by weak stories.

My favorite screenwriter is William Goldman, whose credits include “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “All the President’s Men,” “Misery,” “Marathon Man,” “The Princess Bride” and “A Bridge Too Far.”

Goldman is old school and in his book “Adventures in the Screen Trade,” he takes Hollywood to task for its failure to live up to its potential. It’s an excellent book and fun to read as Goldman picks apart studios, producers, directors, other writers and himself.

So, Hollywood is not living up to its end of the bargain.

Theaters are just as guilty. They bore you to tears with endless local commercials. They serve crunchy food. Who wants to sit in front of someone eating potato chips or nachos. They charge too much for the films they are showing. They don’t make people behave or be quiet.

My dad and I used to go to the movies a lot and he didn’t hesitate to tell someone to be quiet.

We went to see “Godfather III” one Christmas and two rows behind us were a bunch of chatty teenagers.

My dad turned to them and said, “I don’t know how much you girls paid to see this film, but it cost me $5. I’d like to get my money’s worth.”

Sadly, the movie experience has changed for the worse. I didn’t even watch the last two Oscar telecasts.

I used to look forward to going to the movies. I loved sitting there, popcorn in hand, watching trailers of coming attractions.

For what it costs me to take my family to the movies, I can purchase four DVDs or rent 15 of them.

If I want a true movie experience at home, I’ll break off the armrest of one of my chairs, turn the volume on my television up to ear splitting, invite folks to sit in the back of my living room and talk on their cell phones, hire someone else to aim a laser pointer at the screen, smash chewing gum into my carpet, pour week-old Pepsi on my couch and watch 15 commercials for lawyers, funeral homes, vinyl siding, electrolysis, backyard pools, term life insurance and water softeners before plugging in my movie.

Now if I could just figure a way for the picture to be out of focus and framed too low on the screen.

As Granny Clampett once asked John Wayne when he arrived late after an Indian attack, “Duke, where was ya when I needed ya?”