Remakes

Remake. Among film fans it can be percieved as almost a dirty word. But there are some good remakes out there: The Thing instantly comes to mind. The Departed was an excellent remake of Infernal Affairs. Reasons: The remakes were in the hands of GOOD directors and in the case of The Thing, it actually followed the source material as opposed to the original 1951 film. Alfred Hitchcock is one of the few directors who remade his own movie: The Man Who Knew Too Much.

Remember, I said their are SOME good remakes.

What studios are basically doing is fast tracking remakes, waiting for the opening weekend numbers, and if they see its succesful, they remake another film. If not, then a straight to video sequel.

The genre of horror is probably most targeted with remakes. The problem is with alot of these movies coming out, the studios grab a director that is not seasoned and gives them the task of remaking a film. Case in point: The Fog. The Fog comes out and after two weeks it is forgotten. Remakes can live or die based on who is behind it. If it said The Fog directed by David Cronenberg, I'd be alot more interested in seeing it. Hollywood's obssession with remaking foreign horror films is not slowing down either as Let the Right One In is being remade for next year.

A remake that's coming up that I am interested in is RoboCop. I'm a big fan of the original film. The thing that interested me in the remake: Directed By Darren Aronofsky.

With the sheer number of films being remade, tt shows that Hollywood is only speeding up on the remakes. And they seem to LOVE those 80's films. “Romancing the Stone,” “Footloose,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” “Dune,” “The Karate Kid,” “Red Dawn,” “RoboCop,” “The Big Chill,” “Arthur,” “Ghostbusters” and “The NeverEnding Story” are but a few of the titles from that decade being developed around town.

Let's just face it. Hollywood is bankrupt. And it doesn't look to get any better. The majority of studio films today are BRANDS. Being that studios think that we as a people are too lazy to embrace a new idea and would rather have an old one remade. And guess what: we buy it. You want an example? Fast & Furious makes $73 million in its first weekend. Now to anyone who complains about remakes and saw that film on the opening weekend, you just gave Hollywood incentive to make even more. Hell,if I want to see hot chicks and fast cars, please, just take me to the auto show. Don't make a fucking movie, let alone franchise out of it. When people stop supporting remakes and reboots like Fast & Furious, maybe studios will get a hint.

A good article on this was just released today: http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090407/film_nm/us_remakes