TV shows and movies are remade. Songs get cover versions. I believe some plays and symphonies get… not new versions, but… interpretations…? What about novels? If I had an idea for updating The Godfather, but set it in the Russian mob, could I do that? I suppose it all depends on rights holders.
Interesting question. I’d be interested in the answer as well. Seems reasonable.
IMHO, I think you could make it different enough that the rights holders may not have a say.
Would THE WIND DONE GONE count?
“The Wind Done Gone” is an alternate account of the events in “Gone With The Wind”. There was a legal fight over whether it was copyright infringement or parody.
Damn. Ninja’d!
John Barth famously rewrote Giles Goat-Boy. …or so I distinctly remember from the mid-1980s, but the wiki makes no real mention of it. I might have the wrong author. (ETA: No, in 1967 he issued revised editions of his first three novels, then wrote GGB. I think I’m recalling a debate article about whether he should rewrite GGB, as he was then being rumored to do.)
David Gerrold has rewritten several of his books, most notably When HARLIE Was One. (I have a great story about that book, me and The David.)
There are plenty of cases of novels written from another character’s point of view. I’m not sure if that’s the same thing.
It often happens that an author will rewrite his own work, sometimes with drastic changes. The examples I know best, for some reason, are from science fiction. Isaac Asimov wrote the novelization of Fantastic Voyage (which sold forever, it seems, and with the same cover). But it wasn’t his story. Near the end of his life, he decided to “remake” it. The result was Fantastic Voyage II which, despite the title, was a re-imagining rather than a sequel.
Arthur C, Clarke’s story Against the Fall of Night (1948, 1951, 1953) was rewritten as The City and the Stars in 1956.
Robert Sheckley rewrote his short story “The Humours” as the novel Crompton Divided
There’sFuzzy Nation.
Originally Little Fuzzy by H. Beam Piper, written in 1962. Rebooted with permission in 2011 by John Scalzi. Same plot and characters, but many differences. Haven’t read both, myself.
Do novellas count? Two of the Hugo nominees for 2017 are retellings of Lovecraft stories from another character’s point of view.
The Ballad of Black Tom, by Victor LaValle
The Dream-Quest of Vellitt Boe, by Kij Johnson
[missed CalMecham’s comment - feel free to disqualify]
John Fowles rewrote his 1965 novel The Magus under the same title in 1977
In addition, as we’ve remarked before, there is a class of books that have been rewritten as movie tie-ins, despite the fact that there are perfectly good original novels or short stories. This we have
The Island of Dr. Moreau by Alan Dean Foster vs. H. G. wells’ original
The Thing by Foster vs. John W. Campbell’s Who Goes There?
Total Recall by Piers Anthony vs. Philip K. Dick’s We Can Remember it for you Wholesale
James Bond and Moonraker by Christopher Wood vs. Ian Fleming’s Moonraker
The Spy Who Loved Me by Christopher Wood vs. Ian Fleming’s The Spy Who Loved Me
Wicked, maybe, does that fit what you’re looking for? After all, The Wizard of Oz was a book first. Not sure if he had to get permission from Baum’s estate, though.
Would Ender’s Shadow fit? It is a sort of reboot of Ender’s Game.
The Nancy Drew and Hardy Boys novels were repeatedly updated, each time to address changes in the surrounding culture, so a version of Nancy Drew and the Secret of the Old Clock from 1930, will be different than the 1959 version.
I was thinking I’d wait about five years before resurrecting the thread to mention “Pride and Prejudice and Zombies”.
Robin McKinley has written two novels of the “Beauty and the Beast” fairytale.
That one’s more of a “companion novel”, I think.
However, Ender’s Game itself was an expansion of a short story OSC had published several years earlier. There was also a 2nd edition of Ender’s Game written several years later, which added and expanded many scenes, as well as updating events that hadn’t happened when the novel was first published (such as the fall of the Soviet Union.)
THAT’S who I was thinking of… wrong lit’rary John. Thanks.
David Gerrold rewrote “When Harlie Was One” into “When Harlie was One, 2.0” and also made significant changes to “A Matter for Men” when the book was republished.
There have been many novels retold from the point of view of a different character (Mary Reilly [Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde], Grendel [Beowulf], Wicked, The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), etc.
Theodore Dreiser’s Sister Carrie was originally published in an edited version; the unabridged version came out many years later.
The Lord of the Rings was redone a bit to reestablish copyright in the US.
Already got those. 
He also updates a lot of his books when self-/small-republishing them. I bought a copy of The Man Who Folded Himself from him in 2007, discussed it with him for a while, then was irritated upon reading it on the flight home that he’d updated a number of dates and details.