THE MOUSE THAT RESTORED `FREAKY FRIDAY' THE LATEST (AND CERTAINLY NOT THE LAST) DISNEY PROPERTY TO SEE ANOTHER SUNRISE.

Byline: Valerie Kuklenski Staff Writer

It really is true that there is nothing new under the sun, even the idea of movie remakes.

John Huston's 1941 classic ``The Maltese Falcon'' with Humphrey Bogart was a remake of a 1931 version. ``Ben-Hur'' ran his chariot race twice in silents before the 1959 Charlton Heston epic. And ``The Virginian'' had three movie incarnations before the 1960s TV series and 2000 cable treatment.

But perhaps no studio has massaged old material into new form with such vigor as Disney, which has sliced, diced and spiced such titles as ``The Parent Trap,'' ``The Love Bug,'' ``The Absent-Minded Professor'' and ``101 Dalmatians,'' with more to come.

``Freaky Friday,'' starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, opens Wednesday with all the fanfare accorded a new summer release. But the commercials and giant billboards do not allude to the 1977 original starring a teenage Jodie Foster nor to the 1995 made-for-TV version with Shelley Long as the mom.

Producer Andrew Gunn said he initially hoped Foster would be game to play the mother in the remake, as former child star Hayley Mills did in two ``Parent Trap'' sequels. But Foster declined, in part because of concerns that the casting stunt would overshadow the movie's overall merits. Gunn said his one ``homage'' to the original was hiring Marc McClure, who played the young romantic interest opposite Foster, for a cameo as Boris, the delivery man.

There is no big cost savings in reusing old stories, because the old script is heavily reworked or completely set aside, as Gunn did with ``Freaky'' and will do with 1975's ``Escape to Witch Mountain,'' set to film in early 2004 and envisioned as ``a Jerry Bruckheimer film for young teens.'' Bruckheimer is behind the current hit ``Pirates of the Caribbean,'' which is based on a Disneyland theme ride.

The main motive for Disney is moviegoers' at least passing familiarity with a title.

``I think bringing back films that our parents saw is great because people want to see that, and making it for a new generation is really important,'' said Lohan, who made her big-screen debut as the twins in the 1998 ``Parent Trap.'' ``And the parents are the ones buying the tickets, so if it's a movie they saw and a movie they loved, and they think their kids should see it also, that's not going to hurt us.''

Studio executives also feel a comfort level in going with the tried and true.

``You use what you already own, you use what the public already has some connection with,'' said Bob Gustafson, director of the Entertainment Industry Institute at California State University, Northridge. ``The hardest thing to do is to promote or advertise something no one ever heard of.''

Avoiding saturation

Of course, studios walk a fine line between benefiting from recognition and the prospect that familiarity breeds contempt. These days, moviegoers may have seen the original in its theatrical release, then rented the video and seen it repeated too often on cable.

``In the past when you reused material, like 'Maltese Falcon,' the public could not have seen the earlier version very easily,'' Gustafson said.

But this week a shopper could not find the 1977 ``Freaky Friday'' very easily. A local Blockbuster store listed it ``on moratorium'' before and during the remake's theatrical run, a sign of Disney's careful management of its properties for the greatest possible financial return.

``I think as much as home video and cable TV keep some of those films in view, others kind of fade from the limelight, so that effectively they're new movies to their target audience,'' said Leonard Maltin, film historian and co-host of the syndicated ``Hot Ticket'' TV show.

On another level, Disney has also successfully spun off straight-to-video stories involving characters from some of their animated films, like ``The Lion King II: Simba's Pride'' and ``Beauty and the Beast: Belle's Magical World.''

But a Disney representative denies Internet rumors suggesting that chairman Michael Eisner would like to remake some of the studio's beloved animated classics in CGI form. Disney may revive a title and concept with nearly all original work, as it did with ``Fantasia 2000,'' or sequel it to death, as it has done with ``101 Dalmatians,'' ``Jungle Book'' and ``Peter Pan'' spinoff ``Return to Neverland.'' But the studio will not try to improve on what many see as perfection.

Chad Michael Murray, who plays young hunk Jake in the ``Freaky'' remake, agrees. ``Why remake a classic? You don't want to mess it up,'' he said, before impulsively suggesting: ``Tim Burton should do 'Mary Poppins.' ''

Gunn, for one, says he would never touch ``Mary Poppins,'' not even with Queen Latifah in the lead, as one writer's agent suggested to him.

Deja vu on deck

With his three-year development deal at Disney concluding in December, Gunn has the ``Witch Mountain'' remake in pre-production and ``Haunted Mansion,'' an Eddie Murphy vehicle that is also based on a Disney theme park attraction, being edited for a November release.

With other producers, Disney is working up a remake of 1969's ``The Love Bug,'' which previously spawned three theatrical sequels, a brief 1982 TV series and a 1997 made-for-TV remake. The new version will be titled ``Herbie.''

``I wish I could say we were sort of mining the library for other projects, but we looked through it, and either other people have picked the good ones or they're the sort of stuff that shouldn't be touched,'' Gunn said.

Once you have the story, though, that doesn't mean don't touch. ``Freaky'' director Mark Waters said the project was ``ripe for updating,'' and saw no reason to be faithful to the original project.

``I think I got this job merely because I said, 'You want to keep the fact that the mother and daughter switch bodies to be the only thing you keep from the original and throw out the rest,' '' Waters said. `` 'And you basically want to come up with a completely new, original movie that has that concept and that title, because the title's fun and the concept is juicy.' ''

Gunn and screenwriters Heather Hach and Leslie Dixon gave the mother a career as a psychiatrist and put an edge on the daughter by having her play in a rock band.

Curtis said the original was first and foremost a zany farce, while the remake is a fable.

``In a fable you have real storytelling going on with a moral at the end, so it is grounded in some sort of life-lesson reality,'' she said. ``So it's very different from the original and the TV movie, because both of those were much more into the switch.''

In light of Disney's highly successful ``Princess Diaries,'' said Waters, the studio was excited about movies aimed at teen and preteen girls.

Maltin said he found the new ``Freaky Friday'' fun.

``I think ultimately that's what really matters,'' he said. ``The purist in me says leave well enough alone. But I much prefer a good remake than another crummy sequel.''

Valerie Kuklenski, [phone]

valerie.kuklenski(at)dailynews.com

Freakishly familiar product

With its traditionally young target audience, Disney time and again has revived old material, appealing to children for whom the story seems new as well as their parents - the ticket buyers - for whom it is comfortably familiar.

Here are some examples of Disney's deja vu all over again:

``One Hundred and One Dalmatians'' (1961) Villainess Cruella De Vil, above left, and all those spotted puppies came back in live-action form for ``101 Dalmatians'' in 1996 and ``102 Dalmatians'' in 2000, both starring Glenn Close (above right) as the fur-crazed fiend.

``The Absent-Minded Professor,'' a 1961 slapstick comedy starring Fred MacMurray (left), led to the sequel ``Son of Flubber'' and a 1995 TV movie version before Robin Williams (above) came out with the hit redo ``Flubber'' in 1997. ``Professor'' had the novel concept, but ``Flubber'' had the computer-animated goo.

``Freaky Friday'' in 1977 featured teen star Jodie Foster (below), while Shelley Long and Gaby Hoffmann (above) starred in the 1995 made-for-TV version. Now, Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan take their turns as the switch-cursed mother and daughter.

``The Parent Trap'' was a clever idea and something of a technical feat in 1961, as Haley Mills (left) played twins separated as babies by their divorcing parents. They reunite at summer camp and set out to bring their parents back together. Lohan (above) got her big break in the 1998 remake, a hit in theaters, video/DVD and cable airings.

- V.K.

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Photo:

(1 -- cover -- color) Lindsay Lohan

(2 -- cover -- color) Jamie Lee Curtis

(3) Lindsay Lohan, left, and Jamie Lee Curtis star in the newest version of ``Freaky Friday,'' opening Wednesday.

(4 -- 11) see box above

(12 -- 13) Based on the Haunted Mansion theme-park ride, above, Disney's movie version opening in November and starring Eddie Murphy would do well to match the success of this summer's ``Pirates of the Caribbean,'' a film also based on a park attraction, left.

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Freakishly familiar product (see text)