A Discussion of Sequels and Remakes - By Matt Singer

Articles & Profiles: A Discussion of Sequels and Remakes - By Matt Singer
Posted on Sunday, August 01, 2004 @ 00:24:55 Mountain Daylight Time by Duane

From January to July there are roughly twenty-five weekends. Each weekend there are anywhere between one and three major Hollywood releases. And in that time there have been nine remakes, nine sequels, and three films based on television shows. There are at least three more remakes and no less than thirteen more sequels planned for 2004 alone. Movie theaters are drowning in these things.

The phenomenon of repackaging old material in movies is as old as the cinema. Once audiences began to tire of the simple films of actual events and moved into narratives, many of the earliest hits were based on the successful plays of the era. The main reason was the same then as it is now hoping to cash-in on an existing, proven audience. Remakes appeared in the silent era as well in at least a couple instances; the Italian film Quo Vadis? was made twice in the silent era alone.

Those who try to validate the artistic merit of remakes will tell you that good stories are good stories, and there is value in each era using those raw narrative materials in a unique way that reflects its own sensibilities. And perhaps there is; there are certainly some important, famous, or successful remakes. Everyone knows His Girl Friday (1940), the Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell as one of the funniest screwball comedies of its era. But it was a remake of The Front Page, made just nine years earlier. You’ll also find several other remakes over the decades; one by Billy Wilder starring Jack Lemon and Walter Matthau is a surprising treat. Wilder’s Front Page is wildly different from Howard Hawks’ Friday, but both work on their own as satisfying films.

So why, then, was the Coen Brothers’ remake of The Ladykillers such a dud? Why couldn’t Frank Oz make something good out of The Stepford Wives? Why didn’t I have the time of my life at Dirty Dancing Havana Nights? Well the last one is probably not a difficult question to answer.

All these remakes were bombs of varying degrees. Both of the most widely discussed flops of the year - The Alamo ($22 million in grosses on a $100 million budget) and Around the World in 80 Days ($22 million against a $110 million budget) - were remakes of earlier films. Surely at this point the belief that remakes mean audience recognition and an eagerness to head to the box office is sullied if not completely destroyed. Coincidentally, both The Alamo and Around The World were products of Disney, who in recent years have found it in their interest to remake or sequelize their most cherished properties in a blatant attempt to wring fresh cash from old cows. Did the world need a straight to video sequel to Cinderella? Are we better for it?

The only true hit of the 2004’s remakes so far is Zack Snyder’s take on George Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. It followed the huge success of last year’s remake of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, which raked in $80 million on a budget under $10 million. Horror seems to be one genre where remakes to tend to succeed; consider the massive success of 2002’s The Ring, based on the Japanese film Ringu. Perhaps that has something to do with the horror audience - largely teenagers - and their less-than-discriminating taste. Most horror crowds are in it for the gore and the scares (one area in which filmmaking is always improving) not for the plots or the characters.

The rest of 2004 includes Jonathan Demme - who recently remade the classic Charade as the flimsy The Truth About Charlie - taking on The Manchurian Candidate, and Richard Gere and Jennifer Lopez in the American version of Shall We Dance? We’ll see how they fare.