Why so Many Remakes? Follow the Money

In response to "Reconstructing Hollywood: Why So Many Remakes?" by KC Morgan. Read it here…

KC Morgan asks "Why so many remakes?", but don't expect to find the answer in the article. Morgan uses it as a plea, not a query. This article will attempt to find the answer. "Is Hollywood really running out of ideas…?" runs the last paragraph, and this touches on the real problem at hand. Sort of.

The problem is not that Hollywood is running out of ideas. It's that it doesn't want the new ideas it has. There are thousands of original screenplays registered each year, all begging for love and funding, but such a case requires a brand-new investment and starting from scratch on something risky. This prospect may be too horrifying to consider. We see a similar trend in the entertainment industry's emphasis on spinoffs and sequels, and its new investments in hourlong television over feature films; the idea is that you can build many products on one idea if the idea is successful, thus covering your losses (and there will be losses) on other things that didn't make it. (Even film auteur George Lucas has suggested that television is the future, certainly for his famous "Star Wars" saga.)

This sounds like corporate blather over art, but the ideal remake is not an unimaginative rehash, however. Consider "Little Fugitive", currently on the festival circuit, a clever update of the New Wave film of the same name; it successfully incorporates the themes of the original simple black-and-white story of a runaway child into a brand-new narrative, even if the cleverness of the transition only works if you've seen both movies. Or the 1980 "Flash Gordon" (to be fair, a re-adaptation rather than a remake), which turned the product of serial roots into something uniquely bizarre; instant cult classic material and a fondly remembered piece of, dare we say, uberkitsch. A remake should bring something new to the material that recontextualizes it in an important and compelling (and contemporary) manner. Even Morgan gives service to remakes she finds worth the time, in her case "The Stepford Wives", which brought with it a new ending and, perhaps, something to say about women and society in the 21st century. She jeers the remake of "The Love Bug", and who can blame her; what's new to say about poor Herbie, who should have been left alone? And what, exactly, WAS the point of the "Psycho" remake? Even director Gus Van Sant's remarks on that are cryptic.

It is when Morgan mentions directors remaking their own films that an important aspect of today's remakes is made conspicuous by its absence. I began to think of "The Grudge". One big trend is taking films from overseas and remaking them, American-style; if the reasons confuse you, think of it as importing a product and adapting it to the American consumer. The Japanese perspective on genre, horror in the case of "The Grudge", is something new and fresh by Hollywood standards that's been proven to work in other markets. Why not capitalize now? But it's not limited to horror; when Martin Scorsese picked up the megaphone to remake the Asian crime actioner "Infernal Affairs" as "The Departed", the transposition of product gained further legitimacy. In theaters as I type these words, incidentally, and doing quite suitably. (There's even talk of an Oscar, but given Scorsese's track at the Academy Awards it's dangerous to spill those beans too early.)

Imagine it in terms of automobile parts and computer chips and all will become clear.

Nevertheless the trend does lean toward crappy remakes, which is regrettable, but we, the consumers, have a voice: our ticket-buying dollar. Unfortunately, the American moviegoer is as notoriously fickle with remakes as it is with original films, and it is unclear why we should pay to see "Doctor Dolittle" with Eddie Murphy but not "Bad News Bears" with Billy Bob Thorton.

Morgan touches on the fact that many remakes are of "old, sometimes obscure" classics. Perhaps Hollywood believes it is getting away with something. If so, the trend will continue until it runs out of gas, like so many sequel franchises. Remakes aren't about lack of creativity. They're about profitability. Until that's over, who knows?