What is the point in a Remake?

There are some reasons according to me one would like to remake a movie.

Money: There are two reasons within the element of money a producer would want to do a remake.

a) Funding: To make a movie one firstly needs money and hence this can be one of the major reasons one can decide to do a remake. As producer I believe that if one goes to an investor with an already existing and successful title, there are more chances to get funding in contrast to an un-experimented concept. For example; if I want to remake Jaws (1975); I would get investors easily and more funding than I would get if I would pitch for “Full Monty” (1997). Investors and commissioners are more pleased to invest in the tried and tested concepts. Hence, it can be also said that remakes of old films are made because there is availability of a bigger budget.

b) Profits: Not only the investors but also the public would not be sceptical to buy movie ticket King Kong. Hence, movies are remade as there is guaranteed success if there is a famous name attached to it.

Technology: Movies can be remade as they could be made better with the help on new technologies. For example, My Bloody Valentine, the 1981 Canadian ‘slasher film’(Wikipedia.com) was remade in 2009 in 3D. cnd don’t have any good concept or script also opt for remaking movies as an easy option. For example: a recent Bollywood movie Fox (2009) was an awful remake of A Murder of Crows (1999). The movie had copied every scene and even the posters were similar.

Update a story: Film can be also remade to update a story to something more relevant today. For example, ‘The shop around the corner’ (1940) was remade and updated to ‘You’ve got mail’. The earlier movie, the story is about a man and woman who hate each other in real life fall in love with each other via love letters unknowingly. In 1998, love letters were replaced by emails in ‘You’ve got mail’

Better talent availability: A movie may also be remade with the availability of better talent than that in the original film.

Revamping flop concepts: Some of the old movies that have a wonderful story but did not do very well, are also remade. “Sometimes a remake is made not because the earlier film was a success, but because it was a failure and the filmmaker thinks that he or she can improve upon it. Sometimes a recent foreign film is remade because it received limited or no distribution in the United States and producers consider it relatively unknown to the American audience; examples include the 1987 Hollywood Three men and a Baby, which remade the 1985 French Three Men and a Cradle.” (Thinking about movies: watching, questioning, enjoying, By Peter Lehman, William Luhr, Page122)

Reincarnating actors: Some movie remakes are helpful to build and uplift the careers of actors especially when the movie is famous and the characters are legendary. For example, the movie Tarzan - The wonder car (2004) was a launch pad for the actress Ayesha Takia. This movie was a remake of Christine (1983) (Singh, 2006)

Reach new audiences: Sometimes movies are remade so as to reach new audiences; either in a different country/ language or a new generation altogether. The best example for this would be the remakes of Hollywood films in Bollywood like Hitch was remade to Partner; Memento was remade in India in a regional language and was remade again in Bollywood. The main reason to remake Hollywood or other language films is to reach to audiences that might not have had the opportunity to view the original films. On the other hand one can even remake a movie to reach a new generation; a generations absolutely different from the original movie’s release.

The Spanish movie ‘Abre los ojos’ (Open your eyes, 1997) was remade into a Tom Cruise starrer, ‘Vanilla Sky’. This is a movie primarily for people who never saw the original. [http://www.imagesjournal.com/issue10/reviews/vanillasky/]

Homage: Homage is a kind of remake where the production of the remake is done as a tribute or appreciation of the original film. The movie King Kong has inspired several remakes – some terrible and some outstanding; the remake by Peter Jackson King Kong (2005) was remade as a tribute to the original King Kong (1933) directed by Merian Cooper.