So I read today that Daniel Craig is likely to play Mikael Blomkvist in the English language remake of “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo”. I don’t have an issue with the casting choice - I’m just bewildered about this remake so soon after the original movie. I read that they were filming in Sweden. Assuming that means that it is set in Sweden as well, are they really remaking the entire movie just to avoid subtitles?!
I don’t get it. The original Swedish trilogy is still making its way through cinemas. What is the point of this remake so soon after the original films?
Hello, it’s a cash cow. That series is the biggest in this country since Harry Potter or The Davinci Code, and is getting read by millions of people who would NOT want to sit through a foreign film, so of course they have to remake it with Tom Hanks and Scarlett Johanson (or their equivalent). The studio making is is basically writing a blank check to themselves.
Same reason they made American remakes of Funny Games, La Cage aux Falles, La Femme Nikita, Les Diaboliques, Let the Right One In, Ringu, and Solyaris - studios felt that an American version of these films would sell tickets.
Yeah, seriously, why not? Especially since the Swedish films aren’t exactly Citizen Kane.
It’s also disingenuous to imply that the Swedish versions got any kind of normal run in the States. The first one has been running for months and still hasn’t cracked $10 million, with a widest release of ~200 theaters. (boxofficemojo)
I think I heard on NPR that the other two movies of the trilogy were made for TV, not the big screen, so in addition to the “for the money!” answers maybe there’s a component of wanting to do the whole thing silver screen style?
Of course the answer is “for the money” but it is bizarre to me that they simply wouldn’t wildly release the already existing films - that people would so object to subtitles that it makes financial sense to redo the entire films instead of releasing what already exists.
Do you really not see any other possible difference apart from subtitles? Is it possible they could end up being of a higher quality? Is it possible they could have big-name stars that would draw out more viewers than the plot alone could? Is it possible that the Swedish films aren’t great, and that giving them a wide release would end up crashing and burning?
A mix of people not wanting to read subtitles and star power. Also, like any book adaptation, you’ve got a built in audience, including many of the people actually willing to see the subtitled original – that’s a hard plus to turn down when figuring out what to make next (you know, a movie about a board game or a big screen version of an '80s children’s series).
Plus if they just kept the original movie American audiences might find out the book was really called Men Who Hate Women and then someone will start asking questions about ‘philosopher’s stones’ and someone’s self-esteem might be lowered.
I gotta say that that was one of the changes I did appreciate. The book was okay–didn’t love it–but found the constant citing of anti women violence to be way too heavy handed. By the end I felt like saying, “OK, I get it. I’ll make a donation to the women’s charity of your choice, just please stop guilting me.”
I thought it was a matter of Americans being too lazy to read subtitles, but at a recent showing of Sideways (The Japanese remake) I asked the director why he chose to remake Sideways, especially since I knew it had Japanese subtitles. He gave a couple answers I never thought of.
Main reason is simply, people don’t like to read subtitles. It’s not an American thing, people just want to watch the movie. Now I was at a film festival, so most of the people laughed at this, and while people on here may not mind subtitles, the reality is the vast majority of people do.
Cultural differences. I’m sure most people on here have seen some kind of foreign film at one point or another. Comedies are perfect examples. The people will say something, and maybe the translator didn’t do a good job or maybe there’s no cultural equivalent, and you see the people on the screen laugh, but no one in the theater does. An example fo this is in America (don’t know if English use this saying or not) we say the squeeky wheel gets the grease. Meaning the person that stands up and complains gets special or preferential treatment. The Japanese have this same situation, but different. In Japan they say the nail that sticks out gets hammered down. In Japan, to stand out from the crowd is undesireable and the person who does it gets special but undesireable attention. So a translator that just has a script and no movie to watch might think that he could just translate one for the other, although the audience would be lost. A large part of rewrites (according to this Japanese director) was that he felt Sideways was a great movie, but there were significant parts that didn’t quite fit into a Japanese story. So the three main parts (kept purposely vague since I haven’t figured out the spoiler button thingie) of the American film was kept and the rest was slightly different. Sideways as seen through a Japanese eye. It’s the same, yet different film, and I thought it was worth watching. In fact several of the people sitting next to us didn’t even know there was an American film and asked us about it. They were putting it in their queue as soon as they got home. The director was confident that Japanese people who saw his film would think of it as a “Japanese” film rather than a direct remake of the American version. Immediately the Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai come to mind. Same general movie, different endings, based on culture and values. One is obviously Japanese and one is obviously American. In fact I can’t think of how it wrong it would seem to me if the endings were switched either way.
Hopefully the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, will be more of this kind of remake than the normal run of the mill remake. Also, there were some differences from the book (Yeah, I know, there always is) and I’m hopeful that they’ll correct that.
Which is why none of them have read the book.
Watching a movie with subtitles (especially when you aren’t used to it) is a different, and in some ways diminshed, experience from watching a movie where you can actually understand what the actors are saying.
It’s about subtitles and Hollywood’s obsession with making money over being original. Otherwise why don’t other, non-English speaking countries make remakes of subpar American films?
And cultural differences? This is a Swedish story. Set in Sweden. Adapt a different book if that’s a problem.
It’s not “objecting to subtitles”, so much as “believing that a subtitled film will be unwatchable”. If the problem was the having subtitles, the Greek or the Belgian would be remaking movies left and right, but they don’t: for them subtitles are normal like dubbing is normal to me. But to most Americans, the idea of “watching a foreign movie” is just alien (notice that most people will not say “foreign-language”, although that’s really the rub); they won’t even try it. Many people view watching a “foreign movie” as somehow an elitist activity, it’s as if every foreign movie was somehow “high brow” or as if watching it was done only by people who don’t fart. This isn’t made easier by people who do watch those movies, I’ve had idiots talk to me about an Almodóvar movie they had watched as if it was something terribly profound when it was a comedy. But, it’s a foreign movie by a famous director, therefore it’s profound.
alexandra, most remakes begin by moving Paris or Madrid to New York. Not in this case? Ok, but it’s the usual MO.