I saw this story in wiki where they are trying to get an “Escape From New York” re-make deal put together, and I wondered “Why?”.
I have to confess I really don’t quite get the passion for remakes in the movie industry. Sure, there’s the idea that lightning might strike twice, but aren’t there a gazillion scripts out there with fresh material? Why keep going back to the well? What’s the driving logic to keep re-hashing old movies.
My WAG: It’s because, despite all the professionals who look at thousands of new scripts per year, nobody really knows human nature well enough to tell for sure which scripts can be turned into movies that will become blockbusters.
One indication of the potential to become a blockbuster is past success. Somehow, the mix of storyline and characters in some movies just clicks with the public, and millions buy tickets to see it.
With all the fresh material out there, there is no corroborating info as to how well it will do at the box office. The movie execs can only rely on their intuition and experience, and it seems that that is not as good an indicator as past success.
The current business model of Hollywood is that your occasional mega-blockbusters help offset your busts. There is no room for a nice, decently profitable movie because mildly profitable movies are uncommon.
It’s easiest to make a mega-blockbuster when the audiences are familiar with the source material to some degree: either it’s derived from something else (Spiderman), it’s a sequel, or it’s made by a famous director (James Cameron, Quentin Tarentino, Christopher Nolan) or a famous studio (Pixar). Thus, the big studios do not take many risks with original scripts unless they can get a lot of support or have some guarantee of success (see Christopher Nolan and Inception).
If you want to see original ideas, you’re better off watching indie films.
Easy, popular movies already have a recognizable name, which attracts a lot of butts to the seats.
The cliché about Hollywood lacking ideas is true though. Only, it’s been like that since the late thirties or so.
The more people who know the name of the movie, the greater your chances of it being a hit. A remake already has a recognizable name. Once it’s announced, it gets Internet buzz (even when it’s “Why that hell are they remaking it at all? The original was perfect!”).
Hollywood has always remade films, even successful ones. I don’t think anyone complained when they remade The Maltese Falcon 1941 or The Front Page in 1974 or A Star is Born in 1954 or redid Pygmalion as a musical in 1964 (people may have disliked the films, but no one started complaining that Hollywood was out of ideas).
In the case of the recent “Let Me In”, a remake of the excellent Swedish film, “Let the Right One In”, it’s because Americans stay away from subtitled foreign language films in droves. And so, even though, “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” is a fine film, released in US theaters and now available on DVD, Hollywood is busy turning out an English-language version.
In two words - “brand recognition”.
Yep, which explains why trailers sometimes use hit songs which have nothing to do with the movie and sometimes aren’t even in the movie. People recognize it and the familiarity induces a comforting, positive feeling, which translates to, “song good, movie must be good.”
In a lot of cases thats true, but I’m not sure the original “Escape from New York” is really such a well known or beloved film that its going to drive a lot of ticket sales based purely on name recognition.
I think a lot of remakes are driven just because the original had a neat concept or set-up, but a new director thinks the old film either didn’t execute the concept well and he can do better (Thomas Crown Affair, Oceans 11), passage of time has made the otherwise good film look dated (lots of Sci-Fi films), or just because the director really liked the original film and wants to do a remake as sort of a homage (the latest King Kong).
Honestly, when done for those reasons, I don’t really have a problem with remakes. There’s a lot of films out there with neat concepts but flawed execution, giving them another try is at worst harmless (well except to whoevers bankrolling the film) and at best we get a better film.
Known quantities are attractive to bet on, especially if you’re a cocaine-addled studio exec nursing a hangover and the fear that everyone else is smarter than you are.
I would say this is true, but only for a small minority of films. Martin Scorsese’s The Departed fits this description. It was a remake of the Hong Kong film Infernal Affairs.
If it’s the concept that you’re after, then you won’t use the title of the previous film in your new film. The Thomas Crown Affair and Ocean’s Eleven were banking somewhat on people recognizing the previous films. King Kong was definitely banking on it.
Remakes also involve ideas that executives assume have worked before. Unfortunately most studios don’t understand what ideas made the previous films popular, and then screw up the remakes.
Are you kidding? Snake Plissken is iconic enough that he’s been morphed into a cartoon character.
I don’t understand people’s continual shock and confusion over a practice Hollywood has been employing since basically Hollywood existed. For example, Ben Hur and The Ten Commandments were remakes, too, the first versions of these films were silent. I think the list of well-known, recognizable, even beloved movies that are also remakes would be quite long indeed. This isn’t something that’s only started happening in the past decade.
Hollywood does not value “original” stories, and it never has. Good thing, too, because then we wouldn’t have many beloved films, including several already mentioned in this thread like The Maltese Falcon. In fact, entertaining the masses has never been about thinking of wholly new, never before seen stories. You might as well why asked Shakespeare bothered to rewrite King Lear–that story was already very, very well known to his audience. What Hollywood does value is innovation. You may not thinking remaking Escape From New York is innovative, but there’s probably going to be some pretty awesome CGI, definitely a new lead, and the opportunity for a new director to shape and mold the premise as he sees fit.
Anyway, I highly doubt people want anything above or besides what Hollywood gives them. Anything that doesn’t fit the expected norm (and this is true for any form of entertainment) is a hard sell. By all accounts I Love You, Phillip Morris is an excellent film, but despite having Ewan McGregor and Jim Carry, they haven’t bee able to get distribution in American despite trying for like two years. It doesn’t fit into any particular genre, so it’s difficult to market something. And people don’t like it when they either don’t understand what a movie is, or when they think they’ve been misled somehow (Shutter Island fell victim to this. There were plenty of posters around here who insisted the movie wasn’t good because they’ve been sold one thing in the trailers but got something else in the film–even though that something else was better they were still pretty discontent).
So Hollywood gives the masses what they want, and they’re generally pretty good at figuring that out and hitting the mark. But Hollywood does not give or promise the masses “original stories” as the OP and others define them, they never have, and they never will. I suppose if you just really enjoy bitching about things, that’ll be an endless source of irritation for you and a great topic to bring up at parties when you want to get a lot of people agreeing with you about nothing important.
They’re investing HUGE amounts of money, so want a safe bet.
A related issue would be that of all the recent reboots of franchises of the 1980’s: Die Hard, Indiana Jones, upcoming Ghostbusters, etc. History has shown that franchises are *very *powerful in raking in cash. The executives want all the franchises they can have and what’s easier than to establish a new franchise (like with Pirates of the Caribbean) is to continue a series already established.
It’s a matter of money. Squeeze the last drop. Make the final movie of the Harry Potter into *two *movies.
But those aren’t reboots, they’re distant sequels. Reboots require, at the very minimum, a new cast. Most often have brand new people on the production side as well.
All I can say is thank god Gerard Butler bowed out. I was not impressed by Gamer. Kurt Russell set a high bar for square-jawed badassery.
Oh well, distant sequels. Point still stands though.
Well, with HP it makes sense anyway, since the book was so long. But the general point’s true.
I think the real question is with so many good ideas why not use them?
Because the expense is so great the risks must be mimimized. In the old days the movie process was total integration. From the idea down to the theatre it played in, it was all decided at one place.
This made the whole thing easy to control and budget for.
Now that everyone is a free agent, they are out for themselves. This isn’t a bad thing, but it means COMPROMISE. You’re going to have to modify your vision.
This means by the time it goes from point A to point Z 24 other opinions have effected this vision.
On the other hand it’s unfair to compare a remake of a silent film to one remade with sound, as you’re using additional technology. Similar as if you made a cartoon version of something or a color version of a B&W movie.
Another thing few people noted on was copyright. Hollywood used books and other sources that fell out of copyright into the public domain. This made for some of the greatest movies. With extension of copyright, this means Hollywood today is going to cough up big bucks, JUST to get the rights.
For example in an interview Jane Evanovich, author of the “Stephanie Plum” mystery books, said that the money paid her for the right to make the first of the books into a movie made her financially independent. Sounds like a lot of money, though I don’t know the exact amount. And that was JUST for the first book AND that movie has never been made.
Remakes also offer a chance for a success. Look no one wants to invest in a loser. You NEED something to drive investors (AKA stockholders) to your door. If you have a remake and it makes even a dollar you can say “OK look we had 9 losses, but we did have a winner.”
A remake is a lot easier to predict, as you have a set number that will see it, to compare to the original. A set number of pre-sells to cable and DVD as people who want to compare but not see the original but will in other formats and so forth.
Finally remakes often change over time in opinion.
The 1939 version of “A Christmas Carol” pales in comparison to “Scrooge” the remake in the 50s, but TV heavily promoted the 1939 version, most likely as it was more family oriented and less friendly. “Scrooge” was better but it wasn’t till the mid 70s when it became the “classic” and the 1939 version lost favour as a pale rework of the book.