In class we started to get on the subject of how remakes are just a cheap way to gain profit and are rarely well made films. Well I found someone’s blog post where Vic Holtreman claims to have boiled down how to successfully remake a movie in just five steps. I’m going to take his five points and write my own opinion about them. I’ll paste the link below so everyone can read his reasons behind the five steps.
http://screenrant.com/top-five-rules-for-movie-remakes-vic-964/
1. Stories in the public domain that have already had multiple movie remakes done.
I agree with Vic’s first step because in a way I feel remakes of classics don’t really count as remakes. Vic uses movies such as Dracula as an example of a classic and I feel stories like this are so well known and established, that it is very hard to mess up a remake. What I mean is that, for example, the story of Dracula is known by many people, so in a way people know what to expect in a remake. Kind of like how people feel when they go to Mc Donalds, they go there for food because they know what they are going to get, no matter where it is or when it is. People going to see Dracula usually have a base knowledge of what to expect, leading to less let downs. There is the argument that people would like to see classics reinvented, but do you think that really counts as a remake?
2. The original is terribly dated in either setting or pacing and style.
Where many people who love older movies will totally disagree with me, I feel this is very true because when I watch some movies from the 40s and 50s I find myself a bit bored, which I feel has to do with pacing. Maybe this is because newer generations of audiences have a different respect for movies, but then wouldn’t a remake serve good here, to retell a story for newer generations?
3. The original is not terribly well known or beloved.
I feel this is very true and I will use the example of John Carpenter’s The Thing as an example because many people probably do not even know this is a remake of The Thing From Another World. This proves the point that it helps to remake films that are not well known and it creates a successful remake because hell, half the public don’t even think of it as a remake.
4. The remake does in fact bring something new while respecting the original.
I think this is interesting because here someone can use the original film to tell the story in their own way. A good example of this is Halloween and Rob Zombie’s remake, where it essentially tells the same story without changing main plot elements, just from a different characters perspective. One film I’m interested in seeing how this is done is the soon to be American remake of the Swedish Let The Right One In, titled Let Me In. I feel this is going to be interesting because the Swedish movie is based off a novel that is quite lengthy and has many different elements and the American film plans to focus the movie on elements from the book that weren’t expressed in the Swedish film.
5. The original was basically pretty cheesy or tongue-in-check in tone and most folks wouldn’t care if it was remade.
I think this is very true and the perfect example that comes to mind is the remake of Wes Craven’s The Last House On The Left. I must say I actually enjoyed the remake better than the original because it stays very true to the original story, it just takes out some of the slapstick elements of Wes Craven’s original. Personally I felt this element did not mesh well with the rest of the original exploitation film and actually takes away from some of the shock and horror.
I feel these are actually five pretty accurate steps to create a successful remake. Let me know if you guys agree or disagree.
I find it weird that even though there have been soo many remake failures, people still make cheesy remakes all the time. I still don’t understand their motivation behind making it. Is it that they want to just make an easy buck without much artistry or are they actually trying to masterfully recreate a film that they love?
By the way, I never saw the original Ocean’s 11 but I love the remake and the rest of the series.
Thanks for this interesting post, Andrew. I think these are good ground rules that people should consider when discussing good vs. bad remakes. I especially agree with no. 2 “The original is terribly dated in either setting or pacing and style.” and no. 3 “The original is not terribly well known or beloved.” If you must remake a movie, these seem like pretty good reasons to do so. Personally, I don’t really care much about the tendency to remake movies. I’ve accepted the fact that this is America and anyone with a video camera and some money can produce anything, so these crappy remakes are only joining the quickly growing pool of crappy movies already out there. I agree with Holtreman though; it would seriously piss me off if someone tried to remake Casablanca.
As for what Minahj said, I think for the most part, directors are just trying to capitalize on a film that did reasonably well in the past. They’re probably thinking: if this is what the audience likes, why not give it to them? It’s similar to a point that was brought up in one of our previous readings, where the author says that genres basically came about because film makers are making the type of films that the audience respond well to. The only difference here is that most of the time, when people make remakes, they put almost no real creativity into it.
It’s fine to say I’m going to stick with what has worked with audiences in the past, but don’t just do over something that already exists. As a matter of fact, doing that kind of seems like an insult doesn’t it? Like the person is saying, “So basically I’m gonna remake your film for you because you didn’t do it right. Watch how I how do it, ok?”
I thought this post was interesting as well, and I specifically agree with the second point, about remaking a movie that perhaps becomes outdated. I happen to love the new Ocean’s 11 movies (at least the first 2 were good), and while I never saw the original Rat Pack one, I think the point that these movies do well because they “need” to be updated is true. They speak to a new, audience, of a different generation. There’s also an interest with remakes in general I think if they are done in a stylized way that people get very interested to see how they were interpreted. What comes to mind is Tim Burton, and his remakes of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and the recent Alice in Wonderland (although not a remake per se). I think Tim Burton is a film genius and I like to see his films just to see how he has interpreted the classic stories in his Tim Burton way. I also go for Johnny Depp 🙂
This is a great post. i believe people usually make remakes becasue of the belief that it has a greater chance of beining a success, especially if it had succeded in its orgional debut. Similar to business owners who opens up a franchise rather then starting their own company, with the theory that it will have more customers becasue people will already be familiar with the business. Making remakes however has proved to be a very difficult task, and in some cases more risky then creating a whole new film. With movies that people are already familiar with as classic movies, there tends to be higher expectations of its remake. The reamke has a lot to live up to and this puts alot of pressure on the directors. The director task is to make a film that relates to modern audiences but keeps its origional plot. In doing this especially in the horror genre it seems directors try to do this by making a bloodier more gorey film which does not always work. This was the problem with the remake for The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. For this reason I disagree with the first point to some extent. A remake of a classic movie seems to pose a high risk of failure. Audiences will expect an extrodinary movie and be dissatisfied with anything less.