First, thanks for your posts on the Chinese Chan films...fascinating stuff.
Regarding your proposal, that would be ideal, but probably not practical. Setting a film in a long bygone era will be very expensive because of the need to find and utilize period cars, clothing, background sets, etc. By the time cast and crew are hired you're probably talking about an investment in the multi-millions to produce 4 direct to video films. Sales figures would have to be astronomical for Fox to recoup this back much less make a profit.
The "filmed stage play" applies more to the very early talkies. The 4 missing Chans apparently had good production values. Evidence of this is presented via watching BLACK CAMEL which even went on location to shoot.
Chans were "A" pictures at the beginning and not done on the cheap. They gradually went to "B" status but still maintained the high gloss that Fox afforded their productions.
The method John Cork used (audio accompanied by stills from the actual production) seems to be to be the most practical and cost effective way of recreating the lost films.
You can tell that I'm completely obsessed with those Charlie Chan films from China, can't you? I hope people won't mind that I have been posting extensively what I've found. I want to document it somehow, but I'm having trouble dealing with the Chinese characters on my computer directly. That text actually prints here, so I have done more than my fair share of stream-of-consciousness postings recently.
Well, the audio reconstruction with accompanying pictures is great also. Such reconstructions make fantastic DVD extras, of course. I would applaud that also.
The question was about actually refilming those movies. I agree that it would be impractical almost certainly. I don't see it happening.
However, just as a hypothetical exercise, if it were somehow to happen as some sort of direct-to-DVD venture, the issues of somehow recreating Chan himself and recreating the period (to whatever level of success that could be achieved) would be the key.
However, it would take some very special circumstance for it to actually be done. Perhaps some special funding for a film school project to study early sound film-making techniques or something.
