I am right there with you on remaking movies that failed for whatever reason, money, star power, marketing, whatever.
I read somewhere over the years more than once that the rights to the The Last Starfighter were in legal hell. I figure that is the case with many of the movies of the 80's and 70's - contracts were loose and fast back then.
Look at gaming for instance, a musician apparently put a stop to Capcom using the name Ghosts 'n Goblins when they relaunched the franchise on PlayStation 2. A technicality would not let them use the name so they had to go with another name and launch the game while legal worked out payment with the former employee. This happens a lot and keeps a ton of 80's games from getting remade - I figure the same probably applies to movies from that time.
https://www.space.com/the-last-starfighter-sequel-sizzle-reel
Here's the latest I could find about how we are very close to getting a remake of Last Starfighter.