RealityChuck’s nailed it, IMHO. Additionally, you don’t have to spend as much time developing the story (i.e. writing the script, etc.) since you’ve already got most of the groundwork laid for you. No false starts of creating a character, and then halfway through the script deciding that you don’t like the character, or that he/she needs to be split into two characters, so you’ve got to throw everything out and start again. Also, wardrobe and set design are easier as well (and casting should be, but how we ended up with Rosie O’Donnel as Betty Rubble, I’ll never understand).
Another benefit of the film being “pre-sold” is that you don’t necessarily have to hire the best screenwriter money can buy, you can save a few bucks and hire some wetbehind the ears kid for a pittance compared to what a screenwriter of a successful blockbuster will charge you.
1993:
The Beverly Hillbillies
Coneheads
Dennis the Menace
The Fugitive
Homeward Bound
Body Snatchers
The Vanishing
Born Yesterday
Point of No Return (remake of Nikita)
The Three Musketeers
Someone told me Van Sant had said he remade Psycho because younger people refuse to watch black and white movies, and he wanted to make the movie available for a younger audience. I don’t know if this is true, or if he was just making up different reasons for his intent. But you can bet that there are Hollywood bigwigs sitting around saying things to each other like, no one who’s a teenager now is old enough to remember the Love Bug movies, so let’s retool Herbie and make a new Love Bug! And the other bigwigs who are afraid to spend a penny on a potentially risky “new” idea for fear of losing a penny, say, hey remember that popular TV show that was big once, let’s do a new version but as a movie, it’s got a guaranteed audience!
These ideas are hardly true, but I’m wagering the people saying these sorts of things are only interested in the bottom line, that being money, and not interested in creativity and risk-taking.
Also I second what Otto said. Remakes have been around since the dawn of filmmaking. Some reasonable intents were moving from silent to sound, some were instances of directors remaking their own movies, there have been different versions of books, different versions of true life events (I think I’ve seen every movie made about the Titanic, two of which were obviously stolen from for Cameron’s epic), and unique variations on a theme (the two remakes of Invasion of the Body Snatchers which had very different angles and were satisfying for different reasons).
The problem is, the majority of remakes just fail to compete with original versions, especially films based on TV shows, one concept I wish they’d just stop doing already. The downside is that I think there are enough young/dumb ticket buyers out there to make even the worst, lowest-common-denominator remakes enough of a profit for the major studios to just keep at it.