Many of the films we see nowadays are remakes of older films. Everywhere you look is a new remake or reboot of a movie or show. They’re everywhere and have and will continue to be profitable. Why are so many coming out and why are so many of them poor attempts to remake older works?

One prominent reason for remakes is to make the storyline more appealing to audiences of different cultures. This is the case with the 1960 film The Magnificent Seven, a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1954 epic Seven Samurai. This is an example of a remake that was adapted to fit a different culture. Another reason for remaking movies is to expand on the original’s ideas. Heat 1995 expands upon the original L.A. Takedown 1989. The Magnificent Seven and Heat 1995 are considered good remakes with solid reasons to exist.

The vast majority of remakes are made with the sole intent of making money. This is the case with Psycho 1998, the remake of the 1960 horror classic of the same name. It is an attempted shot-for-shot remake so the only differences are the updated setting and sub-par actors. It’s a film that, like so many other remakes, is scarcely different so it can’t help but be compared to the original. This goes along with many remakes. Many take a film or franchise that people love and remake it solely for the goal of profit.

Hollywood produces so many remakes because they do occasionally work. The Thing, made in 1982, elaborates on the original 1951 film, The Thing from Another World. Both are about a group of people coming together to defeat a shapeshifting monster. The remake adds updated special effects and refocuses on how the people turn on each other while trying to stop the creature. This works because the filmmakers understand what worked and what didn’t about the originals and expanded on them instead of remaking them exactly the same.

Many remakes don’t work because the changes made from the original don’t actually benefit the movie. There are plenty of remakes of great films so they are always going to have a disadvantage. 2014’s Robocop was a bland remake of the 1987 original of the same name. The original has many themes of corporate greed, corruption and timely 80’s political issues. The new film stripped away all deeper meaning. Many remakes are films that just take an existing popular title and remake it with little changes or expansion of any kind. The difference between good and bad remakes is that a good ones go deeper into the themes or characters. Recently remakes are very common because of how profitable they are. However, many are made with little attempt to add new layers to the originals.

Many remakes don’t work because they are made with the sole intent of making a profit. This isn’t surprising as Hollywood is a business, however, with all the less than stellar remakes coming out, more thought being put into these projects would be a step in the right direction.

Works Cited

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2016/03/cycles-sequels-spinoffs-remakes-and-reboots/474411/

http://comicbook.com/movies/2017/03/31/worst-movie-remakes-ever/

http://variety.com/2016/film/opinion/worst-movie-remakes-psycho-footloose-1201841126/