Movie theaters today are no stranger to remakes and reboots; however, in recent years it feels like they’ve become more and more common to see being released in theaters. According to Screenrant.com, by the end of 2019, theaters will have played over ten remakes and reboots, ranging from “Aladdin” to “Hellboy.” Do we really need so many big studio remakes every year? Is this something that audiences really want?
Studios keep cranking out remakes often to average critical responses. Why? The answer is simple: they make a lot of money. The “Ghostbusters” reboot that came out in 2016 currently holds a 60 percent on Metacritic, a middling score, but still made $229.1 million globally according to BoxOfficeMojo.com. The remake for “The Mummy” that was released in 2017 made even more, $410 million, with a considerably lower score on Metacritic: 34 percent.
If these movies are critical failures, why do so many people spend so much money seeing them? A major component to it is nostalgia. Film professor, Dr. Chelsea Crawford, said, “We think about (nostalgia) as a return to something that is impossible — something to which we can never return.”
The reason there is such a big audience for remakes is because audiences want to feel the same way that they did when they first saw a movie. This explains why name recognition alone can sell a ticket. No one who went to see the remake of “The Mummy” walked away feeling the same sense of swashbuckling adventure that they did when they first saw “The Mummy” from 1999. The remake shares essentially nothing with the original other than the title, which is a key factor in selling tickets.
Walking out of the theater after seeing a failed reboot or remake, audiences tend to feel disappointed, and rightly so. The audience was hoping to return to those same happy feelings of seeing a good movie for the first time but didn’t. They saw the “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” remake from 2014 in an attempt to return to feeling the way they did when they saw the original, but as Dr. Crawford said, it’s “something to which we can never return.”
Clearly, there are a lot of bad film remakes, however, that’s not to say that all remakes are bad. Remakes that receive more critical success tend to be ones that take the original film and spin it in a different direction in an attempt to update it with the times or produce it from a different angle.
Dr. Crawford spoke on this idea by discussing “The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo” remake from 2011. “I love ‘the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ remake and I like the original ‘the Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’ series, but Fincher’s directing on that film kills me. The choices he made, the sort of style, the way he lets the story unroll is fantastic.” She argues that a remake is worth it when a director is trying to say something unique through a story that has been done before because it gives a brand-new take to a, perhaps, played out idea.
If remakes are good when a director makes them with a vision, then why are there so many bad ones being made? The answer has a lot to do with the part that nostalgia plays. Dr. Crawford also adds, “Hollywood doesn’t typically invest in them because they think they’re good, but because they think they’re going to be a quick buck.”
When looking at films that have been remade more than once, we have to ask, “how far does something like name recognition or nostalgia go?” The 2018 version of “A Star is Born” is the fourth time that a movie with that exact title has been released. However, each rendition has roughly 20 to 30 years between them, showing that each remake has updated the story with the times as things have changed in our society. But now this makes us wonder how many more remakes of that story audiences will want to see and whether it will remain a relevant narrative as time goes on.
A slightly different version of this phenomenon is found when examining the Spider-Man movies. In 2002, director Sam Raimi gave his take on the classic comic book character with a movie simply titled “Spider-Man.” The film saw great success both critically and financially, allowing two sequels to be made with both doing well at the box office in 2004 and 2007.
In 2012, a rebooted Spider-Man series was created under the name “the Amazing Spider-Man.” Although the movie and its sequel didn’t receive raving critical responses, each film made roughly the same as the original at the box office. Again in 2017, a new reboot of the film series was launched that also made a similar amount in ticket sales.
When looking at the frequency of remakes in the Spider-Man series, it’s surprising to see that all the movies made so much money with varying levels of quality. Similarly to “A Star is Born,” each Spider-Man film attempted to update the character for audiences and, if box office numbers count for anything, it clearly worked to get people in the door. Dr. Crawford explains, “with even minor changes, [Hollywood] can tap into an even slightly aged or new audience.”
While it’s hard to say whether movie remakes as a whole are a good or bad thing, it’s clear that there is a huge demand for them and that they will continue to be made. For now, all we can do is grab a bag of popcorn, a nice, comfy seat and wait for someone else to make another Spider-Man movie.
