There’s a great quote from Roger Ebert which I will cite to the best of my memory:
“Why do studios waste time remaking good movies? They should remake bad ones, and this time make them good.”
Like, Valley of the Dolls, maybe? Get a better scriptwriter? 
You must go beyond.
Thanks, but I have no direct involvement. One of my best friends is an industry pro, though, so I get first hand accounts of some of the inner workings of the industry. Other than that, my knowledge just come from general reading.
I think you answered your question. Would you have been just as likely to watch some sort of Fantasy Island like show with a different name? Or when there is nothing else you can find, you think… oh I know what Fantasy Island is, let me watch the reboot version.
I did admit upthread that part of the reason my wife and I watched was curiousity as to how they’d update it for the 21st century. But we’re quite a bit older than the coveted 18-34 demo, which may have never even heard of the original show. Or maybe they have- it is part of the cultural zeitgeist…”de plane, de plane!”
I know, it was already “loving old married couple get to spend one last happy time together before she dies of cancer” and then they shoehorn in a latent lesbian subplot. I’m all for LGBTQ representation, but that twist really seemed dumb.
The key demo is actually more like 18-49. 18-34 is the young demo, but advertisers tend to want to sell to the entire key demo. And considering the original Fantasy Island aired from 1977 to 1984, the older part of the key demo is probably the most interested.
And of course, younger folks have at least heard of the show. As they have heard of All in the Family, MAS*H, etc.
Elevator pitches are used in lots of other industries also. I think the idea is that if you can’t come up with an elevator pitch marketing will find the property too hard to sell.
Remember Buck Henry pitching the sequel to the Graduate at the beginning of “The Player?”
Though sequels are different from reboots, and I suppose a bit harder to sell.
Hollywood has been using and reusing ideas literally since it started. People complained in the 30s that they had run out of ideas and they complain now. It’s a business run by money men and not artists.
Another angle on this is that there is so much space to fill, it makes sense to use up some of that space with reboots of familiar works. And there’s a TON of really old works to tap into. The time between original FI to now is longer than the time from the beginning of TV to the original FI.
There is more original content now than there has ever been, there is also more recycled content, more ‘reality’ content, more garbage and more brilliance.
Oh, come on. Kit was the coolest car around.
Ahem. KITT - Knight Industries Two Thousand.
And Knight Rider was awesome! (I was a 10 year old boy. I think I was legally obligated to find it awesome).
The studio heads back then had a lot more control, and could take risks, not reporting to conglomerates like they do today.
Back then they remade a lot of silent films, like Thief of Baghdad. They had movie series - not just serials, but things like The Thin Man and Ma and Pa Kettle. But I can’t think of any reboots
Are you referring to any ancient, dimly remembered tv shows in particular? Because it seems to me that for the most part - when it comes to television anyway - it’s shows that had at least some popular cultural impact (for better or worse) that are getting rebooted or sequeled.
No offense intended, but are you sure it’s not a case of you just not being into the original show and so you can’t understand why anyone would want to see a reboot?
Once in a while, TV producers strike gold and launch a reboot that winds up being more successful than the original. Remember Battlestar Galactica 2003?
And the best actor on the show.
Tarzan?
The Studio heads, the ones in charge were always money people. They may have also been artists but they were in charge because they had money. And money always influenced their decisions. The stories they told were derivative and based on the books the creators read as kids or other influences. They chased what was popular and copied what others did even then. None of that is new
I love movies and I think movies (and TV) are art but you can find articles from the very beginning griping about all the same things we gripe about now.
Maybe I was exaggerating a little on ancient and dimly remembered. But take one of the examples in my OP- Hawaii 5-0. I dimly remember watching that show with my parents, and I’m pretty old. I remember Jack Lord having a hammy gravitas, kind of the David Caruso of his time, and the catchphrase “book ‘em, Dano”, and that’s about it.
Hollywood has attempted rebooting ‘Lost in Space’ twice now. As a movie that bombed in the late 90s(?) and now as a Netflix series. The series has pretty much the same characters, and it’s not terrible, my wife and I watched a couple seasons, but they changed it up so much I often thought, why bother with the Lost in Space branding? The tone is completely different, more serious than campy; there’s a robot, but it’s now alien technology with opaque motivations (its fellow robots murdered a bunch of other human space travelers). Dr. Smith is now a woman with very different qualities than Dr. Zachary Smith. It’s so different, why not just make a more original “family has adventures in space” show?
Because the executive clowns haven’t yet learned you can’t “manufacture” a hit like you can a car or bookcase.