remakes/reboots

[dspencer]

What's with all the remakes/reboots recently? I know in theory a classic film could potentially benefit from modern CGI etc, but where's the originality??

[RickyRaj]

What's with all the remakes/reboots recently? I know in theory a classic film could potentially benefit from modern CGI etc, but where's the originality??

Agree, remakes don't always make good films much like sequels. I think it's because they are short on ideas and therefore want to go with films that have previously been successful thus lessening the risk of it being a flop.

[distortthecode]

While I do agree with you that it's short on ideas, at the same time I can see why some remakes happen from a directors standpoint. Sometimes there is a story which is told that you see in a different way and want to tell it your own way. No matter what it would get compared with the original, even if they renamed it or dressed it up as a different film. For example, Little Shop of Horrors - I know that whenever I think of the film I think of the 80's version rather than the original from 1960. While infrequent, sometimes a sequel can be as good as or better than the original.

[TheOnes]

I would say its less to do with not having new ideas than it is to do with having faith in new ideas.

Movies are very expensive to make, and the big summer movies cost an average 200 million to make not including marketing. Studios need to recoup that money in anyway they can. To do so they need an audience, a large enough group of people willing to consume a product you put out.

Remakes, books, games, etc. All of these have an established audience that has been tested previously and the audience already knows about to some degree. So when they see the trailer, poster, listing, etc. They recognise it and know sort of what to expect, at the same time as having the allure that its a new product. Alot of the marketing is already done and faith in tje prpdict making money is higher than a no name film coming out that you may be able to stir audience interest in.

Sure, it is by no means a fool proof methodology, adaptations bomb and low budget independant movies explode at the box office, but the majority of both fit an established correlation, barring a few outlying pieces of data

To say hollywood has no ideas left is giving them less credit that they deserve. Paramount recently allocated some revenue nto a subdepartment whos sole purpose is to fund independant movies with fresh ideas (capped at around 1 mil per project). And fox searchlight was setup for a similar purpose. And 10-30 million dollar studio pieces to get made, as there is more stablity there.

The problem isnt that there are only remakes and adaptations, the problem is that they get the most exposure