'The Butterfly Effect' Getting A Reboot

As Hollywood gets increasingly dependent on established properties, we've seen all manner of things get remade and rebooted in the past few years. Including a certain superhero franchise that was barely ten years old when it got reworked as a new series. Still, this one seems to come out of nowhere.

Benderspink and Film Engine are teaming for a reboot of The Butterfly Effect, the 2004 sci-fi thriller starring Ashton Kutcher as a man who travels back to earlier points in his life and attempts to re-do them — or reboot them, if you will. (You won't. You shouldn't.) All the details after the jump.

The Butterfly Effect reboot comes as a bit of a surprise. For one thing, the original opened just nine years ago. For another, I can't imagine too many people were clamoring for a do-over. Though I'm sure those of you who disagree will go ahead and let me know in the comments.

On a financial level, however, it makes perfect sense. The 2004 film grossed $96 million worldwide when it opened, and cost just $13 million to make. It was popular enough to inspire a couple of direct-to-DVD sequels, which hit shelves in 2006 and 2009.

Much of the team behind the original is being reassembled for the new one, including producers Anthony Rhulen, A.J. Dix, Chris Bender, and JC Spin. Eric Bress, who co-wrote and co-directed the original, is writing the script. No director is attached for the reboot at the moment.

The original's plot followed Evan (Kutcher) and his well-meaning but ultimately ill-fated efforts to prevent some of his childhood traumas, and those of his childhoot sweetheart. However, his meddling in the past has unintended consequences, and he finds himself in alternate realities in which he's an amputee, or a convict.

Honestly, it's not a bad idea for a sci-fi movie. The first one was panned by critics but still has its fair share of fans. Maybe the second can attract even more of a following by learning from the mistakes of the first.

Mistakes like, for example, scrapping this totally bananas alternate ending in favor of the one they actually went with.

For those of you who don't want to watch the video or don't understand what's going on, that's when (spoilers, I guess) Evan travels all the way back in time to his own birth and strangles himself with his umbilical cord so that he'll never be born at all. Now that's an admirably insane ending to a crazy premise.