The Measured Circle's Hooray for Remakes!
There are plenty of reasons to hate Hollywood remakes (Matthew Broderick’s Godzilla, Nicolas Cage’s The Wicker Man).
Put “Worst Movie Remakes” into a search engine and you’ll get pages of websites devoted to the topic. You’ll see all sorts of derogatory comments:
“Of the many crimes foisted upon humanity by the faceless filmmaking syndicate known as Hollywood, perhaps none are as loathsome as the subpar remake.”
–Movieline
“Our cinemas seem to be blighted with remakes these days …”
-suite101.com
“…please stop ruining the great horror movies of the past.”
-FilmSchoolRejects
So, why would Hollywood keeping making remakes?
Well, a really common answer to “Why?” is “the money, honey”. That Godzilla movie? $55 million opening weekend in the US, eventual US gross of $136 million. That was on a budget (according to the IMDB page) of $130 million. That’s just the US gross…it made money overseas, money on home video, and so on.
The Wicker Man remake, though? Maybe not so much…$40 million budget, US gross of $23 million.
The fact is that audiences like familiarity. It’s sort of like going to your high school reunion…you want to see those people again, even though you might have hated them (or not even remember some of them). Producers like it, too. Nobody knows why a particular movie makes money, really. It’s always a risk. You want to pitch a movie in Hollywood? You’d better be able to say “It’s like [insert blockbuster here] meets [insert second blockbuster here]“.
Oh, truly original movies get made…but they may be financed by the director’s family. Sometimes a studio will back an unprecedented plot…but there is usually some other reason for it. Maybe the script has a lot of buzz, or you’re willing to let the moviemaker have a vanity project every once in awhile, as long as they churn out the bread-and-butter predictables on a regular basis.
So, audiences always hate remakes, right?
Nope.
I always look for the other side, I want to turn the popular notions over and see what’s hiding underneath.
Some of the most beloved movies of all time are, themselves, remakes. They may make such an impression that people don’t even realize they are remakes…they think they are the originals.
Critics may love them, high-schoolers quote them, Oscar give them the gold…and yes, they may make money, too.
The next time you hear about the latest Hollywood remake, I want you to think about the following examples of that much maligned group. Who knows? Put away the prejudice and you may be saying…
“Hooray for remakes!”
Put “Worst Movie Remakes” into a search engine and you’ll get pages of websites devoted to the topic. You’ll see all sorts of derogatory comments:
“Of the many crimes foisted upon humanity by the faceless filmmaking syndicate known as Hollywood, perhaps none are as loathsome as the subpar remake.”
–Movieline
“Our cinemas seem to be blighted with remakes these days …”
-suite101.com
“…please stop ruining the great horror movies of the past.”
-FilmSchoolRejects
So, why would Hollywood keeping making remakes?
Well, a really common answer to “Why?” is “the money, honey”. That Godzilla movie? $55 million opening weekend in the US, eventual US gross of $136 million. That was on a budget (according to the IMDB page) of $130 million. That’s just the US gross…it made money overseas, money on home video, and so on.
The Wicker Man remake, though? Maybe not so much…$40 million budget, US gross of $23 million.
The fact is that audiences like familiarity. It’s sort of like going to your high school reunion…you want to see those people again, even though you might have hated them (or not even remember some of them). Producers like it, too. Nobody knows why a particular movie makes money, really. It’s always a risk. You want to pitch a movie in Hollywood? You’d better be able to say “It’s like [insert blockbuster here] meets [insert second blockbuster here]“.
Oh, truly original movies get made…but they may be financed by the director’s family. Sometimes a studio will back an unprecedented plot…but there is usually some other reason for it. Maybe the script has a lot of buzz, or you’re willing to let the moviemaker have a vanity project every once in awhile, as long as they churn out the bread-and-butter predictables on a regular basis.
So, audiences always hate remakes, right?
Nope.
I always look for the other side, I want to turn the popular notions over and see what’s hiding underneath.
Some of the most beloved movies of all time are, themselves, remakes. They may make such an impression that people don’t even realize they are remakes…they think they are the originals.
Critics may love them, high-schoolers quote them, Oscar give them the gold…and yes, they may make money, too.
The next time you hear about the latest Hollywood remake, I want you to think about the following examples of that much maligned group. Who knows? Put away the prejudice and you may be saying…
“Hooray for remakes!”
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