Film remakes: do they ever succeed?

[stan.smith]

And half of the Bollywood movies are corny remakes of Hollywood movies!

[dderek123]

I liked the Dawn of the Dead remake and The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (but the swedish version was better in some ways).

It's subjective though what I like wouldn't be someone elses favourite thing. I rarely rewatch films these days because I just want to be entertained for a little while. I get more irritated with poorly written books since I need to invest more time and effort into the experience.

[Stavros]

Are we talking financial success, critical success, or both?

The Departed remake takes place in Boston btw.

Oops!

[Prospero]

similarly the original of "Let the right one in" (swedish) was far better than the US remake.

[Stavros]

what? are you for fucking real? The US Italian job was a decent film with no way in any relation to the British film of the same name, aside from the same name.

Noel Coward is legendary in the film.. Maybe you meant Benny Hill's part which is essentially a molester, and Im surprised its not been cut out and replaced with jar jar binks in latest releases.

As for this new Old boy film, I dont even have to watch it to know it will be shit.

'Jar jar binks' -?? No comprende.

Noel Coward in The Italian Job served little purpose other than to move the plot along, the man was a virus. Cant say much about Benny Hill other than that he was from Southampton, which explains a lot, and is/was Tony Benn's favourite comedian. Go figure. The American version was not bad as an entertaining film.

[Jericho]

Red Dawn was a pretty woeful remake.

Better than the original....

True Grit
Payback (Yeah, yeah, it's Mel Gibson, get over it)
The Getaway

[bluesoul]

The Departed (Scorsese, 2006)
The original Hong Kong movie from 2002 has an edge that the Scorsese film lacks, as well as the nuances of life in Hong Kong that do not export well to Chicago. The script is poor, the acting mechanical. Not so much a departure as a pause without a conclusion.

i don't think i'd call some of these failures.

the departed won scorsese a 'best director award' (something even goodfellas couldn't do for him) and made the studio back their money plus some profit.

some like it hot was a major success (critically and financially)- it's even now part of the national congress not to mention making the director a million and all 3 stars more than 500,000 each. whether or not you like the film, it's place in history is sealed.

i get what you're saying- and i too frown upon remakes- but most of those films made their money back and that's all the producer and especially the studio cares about to consider the film a failure or success.

the new oldboy isn't something i'm looking forward too (despite my hatred for spike lee coupled with his asshole-ism behavior) but i also disliked the original and hated stolker.

i think a better question you should've asked could've been 'why do american remakes of foreign films make more money and become more popular?" eg: the vanishing, insomnia, traffic or solaris

[Prospero]

Answering the last point. I assume they are remade in the English language because the industry assumes that the vast majority of Americans will not watch films with subtitles .. Away from key enclaves on the east and West coasts. The US version of Solaris missed the point of the original totally.

[tsmirandameadows]

Better than the original....

True Grit

Beat me to it. The Coen Brothers remake was, in nearly every way, clearly superior to the original.

The Getaway

I never saw the remake with Alec Baldwin and Kim Bassinger, but I have hard time envisioning them topping the sheer cool factor of Steve McQueen (the coolest man no longer alive) and Ali McGraw at their heights. Plus, Sam Peckinpah.

[bluesoul]

Answering the last point. I assume they are remade in the English language because the industry assumes that the vast majority of Americans will not watch films with subtitles .. Away from key enclaves on the east and West coasts. The US version of Solaris missed the point of the original totally.

i don't think that's an assumption because it is a fact (as proved by the box office success of those films). but on the same note: why remake a hollywood film that was already originally in english? example tron, or the upcoming videodrome?