Reboots, Remakes, & Sequels...Is It Our Fault?

[Mitch Henessey]

So I was browsing the internet earlier today, and I came across an interview with Roger Ebert. Ebert talks about his life, politics, and movies. The interview is a pretty fun read, but there's one part that really caught my attention:

If he is cautiously optimistic about movie-going, he is not always as buoyant about moviegoers. In Life Itself, he writes, “f you pay attention to the movies they will tell you what people desire and fear. Movies are hardly ever about what they seem to be about. Look at a movie that a lot of people love, and you will find something profound, no matter how silly the film may seem.” I asked him what the current overload of sequels, remakes, and “re-boots” tells us about “what people desire and fear.”

“For some of them: They fear the new,” he responded. “They fear taking a chance. They fear informing themselves about new films. They remember a good movie experience and desire to repeat it. It will grow harder to make a great original film, and impossible to avoid remaking it time and again.”

You can read the entire interview here: http://flavorwire.com/207198/roger-ebert-on-movies-politics-and-life-itself

I've made threads about the overload of reboots and sequels before, but Ebert's comments made me think about the entire situation from a different perspective.

Pirates Of The Caribbean: The Curse Of The Black Pearl was a fun film, and moviegoers fell in love with the Jack Sparrow character. Fast forward eight years and three films later, and the Pirates Of The Caribbean franchise is still a box office juggernaut, but the quality of the films continues to sink. Story wise, the Transformers films stuck to the same pattern for three films, but each Transformer film raked in a good amount of cash.

I usually complain about the constant remakes and spinoffs of Friday The 13th and A Nightmare On Elm street, but Jason and Freddy Krueger STILL draw. Friday The 13th's (2009) total gross was $91,379,051, and A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) managed to rake in $115,664,037. And Rob Zombie's 2007 Halloween remake scored an amazing $80,253,908 at the box office. Oh, and this is the highest grossing film in the entire Halloween franchise. Also, the 3D version of The Texas Chainsaw Massacre should rake in a good profit, because the 2003 remake was a box office success. You can check out the box office profit links here:

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=halloween07.htm (Halloween)

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=nightmareonelmstreet10.htm (A Nightmare On Elm Street)

http://boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=fridaythe13th09.htm (Friday The 13th)

The Spider-Man reboot will hit theaters next year, and this film will be a huge box office success, you can count on that. Also, the Fantastic Four reboot should receive a good amount of attention.

I thought A Nightmare On Elm Street (2010) was shit. Jackie Earle Haley's performance wasn't bad at all, but the entire film felt like a generic Hollywood horror flick. Still, Freddy Krueger is a recognizable and famous horror legend. Elm Street fans were going to watch the film, and people who grew up with Krueger would also show their support. The same thing can be said about Michael Myers and Jason. The Pirates films may reek of mediocrity, but Jack Sparrow's popularity has risen over the years, and he has become a popular film character.

Should all of the blame fall on moviegoers? It's a tricky question to answer, but I don't think moviegoers deserve all of the blame. Certain films will leave us with an experience we'll never want forget. We will want to relive it again. That's why so many people still flock to theaters to watch the Pirate films.

Remakes can provide some nice nostalgia. Fans will want to compare and contrast the modern day films with the original. The studios and production companies know they can capitalize off of famous characters and film franchises. They know they can lure moviegoers into theaters, because fans will have some curiosity about the new film.

Reboots and sequels will continue to pop up, because if the original film can establish a nice fan base and make a good profit at the box office, the studios will continue to produce new films.

It really is a two way street when you stop and think about. Moviegoers enjoy what they see on screen, and the studios dish out new films. In some cases, the new films won't measure up to the original, but moviegoers will still have that comfort zone feeling, because they already had an enjoyable experience with the previous film, and a lot of people will crave the desire to relive that good feeling.

What are your thoughts?

 

[This Is My Name Thank You]

Movie nowadays are all about the special effects and this 3d thing we got going on. They tend to lack a good story line to them. It is who can do the most amazing CG graphics and the best fights etc, etc, while writing the worse story possible. The first movies are the best because they need them to be the best if they have sequels in mind. If you can have a good movie that hooked people in then the next movie can lack story and have a more exciting experience. People will say it is good when the story of the movie can be horrible. Once movie goers pass a sequel like the Saw series, I just lose all interest. They become redundant to the first movie and it just kills the whole effect of the movie.

Remakes are another thing that has killed off movies as they tend to not be as good as the original. Sure they add new spins to try to add flavor to the movie just at times it doesn’t work. Like Charlie and the Chocolate factory was awful. Why they did it or considered it to be the way it was made just shells my mind every day. I wish my eyes didn’t watch it to be honest. Sure there are remakes that are good out there I just have only found a few such as 7 Pounds, great movie all around. The movie When a Stranger Calls is another good remake of a classic movie and another good remake.

So maybe I am critical of movies at times but hey, it is one of my hobbies. Only movies I cannot watch is gore fests. Not my thing at all.

 

[Paralyzer Z]

I think that guys reviewing Disney's chicken little movie said the best "I don't care if its shot in 2d 3d or drawn, it all goes back to the story" I swear 90% if romantic movies are identical! But with the age of constant remakes and a lack of fresh ideas we are stuck with this stuff. I don't find sequels bad because they continue the story it just depends on how good they do it.

In the end it's all about how much interest they can gain from an audience who likes any stupid movie they see like "Bucky Larson born to be a star!" Yes it is all our fault for living among idiots who pay to see garbage like vampire sucks. We only have our selves to blame.

 

[Fire Marshall Bill]

Elm Street fans were going to watch the film, and people who grew up with Krueger would also show their support.

As a huge Freddy Kruger fan, I refuse to watch the new ones so I don't ruin the amazing job Robert Englund did.

Like Charlie and the Chocolate factory was awful. Why they did it or considered it to be the way it was made just shells my mind every day.

Ever read the book? The latest version is much more like the book than the original. That's why they did it. Well, plus Tim Burton has an obvious dark tone in all his movies.

Anyways, on to your question. Like most things like this, the blame can be split, at the very least, two ways. It's really an endless circle. Movies like Vampires Suck (just using it as an example because someone mentioned it) continue to be produced because moviegoers continue to go watch them. Yes, the movie is horrible. I don't have to see it to know this. It's the same as The Comebacks, Date Movie, Disaster Movie, etc. But why not make these movies if we continue to go see them? If they're still pulling a worthwhile profit off of them they're gonna continue to make them.

At the same time, as a producer why would they want to take a chance at a movie/story that actually has some originality when they know that Comic Hero Movie (just made up in reference to all the recent X-Men, Thor, Captain America, etc) is going to still pull in X amount of money which will more than cover the costs?

They keep making them because we keep watching them. We keep watching them because they keep making them.

The same really could be said for sequels and reboots. Like you said, if they develop a strong enough fan base, they're going to get viewers. One thing that bothers me that hasn't really been mentioned is the quick turnaround on some of these reboots. The Spiderman trilogy was legitamitely good, yet we're doing another one already? Fantastic Four was ok, but not bad enough to reboot already like The Hulk. But I digress...

 

[Alex]

Personally I blame Batman Begins.

Batman Begins was a reboot of the Batman franchise that pretty much died with Batman & Robin.

Batman Begins was more gritty and more realistic and it was a hit spawning a sequel (The Dark Knight) which was extremely popular and made loads of money.

Now Hollywood likes to jump on the bandwagon and all the other studios started looking at their back catalogs to find something to update which is where we're at now.


I think most of the modern reboots/remakes of films that are less then thirty years old are particularly money grabbing ones.

Lots of these films special effects were good for the time but now look a bit dated (stop motion's pretty much extinct) as RKOtheWorld21 pointed out, most movies nowadays are about the effects, so Hollywood think an old movie that was good with better effects should equal money, but it doesn't.

Some reboots/remakes from films that are less than thirty years old that are possibly being made are Evil Dead, The Crow and Robocop to name a few. The trouble with remaking these films are they are so part of their time that trying to modernise them would be awkward. In the 1980s films like Evil Dead worked because they were gory yet humourous, I mean heck the mere fact that Ash Williams cuts off his own hand with a chainsaw AND replaces his hand with said chainsaw is so cheesy yet so 80s. Again The Crow isn't that old and it was a 1990s film that would be hard to modernise, the location, the music were just a part of its time that it would be hard to update.

 

[Poop Master Flex]

The reason remakes are made is because the original is so successful, technically if the movie wasn't a success sequels or remakes wouldn't exist, all in all it comes down to the bottom line and if enough people watched it.

Also RKOtheWorld 21 made a good point as a hell of a lot of movies are about a visual spectacle and don't rely as heavily on the story because they don't feel they have to. Take a typical Michael Bay or Roland Emmerich film, all were about special effects and were not about a good story or story structure. This is a big reason why I don't like watching too many movies these days as I think special effects should be used to compliment a story but always come secondary to the story.

A perfect example of this was Terminator 2: Judgement Day. The special effects (specifically the T-1000) were revolutionary for the time and the movie to this day looks pretty damn good but the story came first, not the special effects, the T-1000 complimented the story and made a perfect adversary for the technically inferior T-800 but it was never about the T-1000 and how he looked, it was about saving John Connor and attempting to stop Judgement day from happening. The characters will built fantastically and everything from the characters to the story just flowed together, the special effects were the icing not the cake itself.

The big reason why all these films are made is due to the success of the original, Plan 9 from outer space was an awesome film they would remake it but alas its one of the worst films ever made so obviously they won't (or any other Ed Wood movie for that matter).

If sequels and reboots are done I have no issues with it as some are pretty good (like Spiderman 2 was better than the original, or the new X-Men movie was pretty damn good too) but when you forget what made the movie great and try to go all visual effects the movie will often rake in dough (which at the end of the day matters) but honestly most remakes and sequels I watch just make me want to watch the original again (like Clash of the Titans or Superman Returns).

 

[Alex]

An interesting thing I've found out is that remaking and rebooting films that aren't that old isn't new. the 1953 version of House Of Wax was a remake of a film from 1933 and Alfred Hitchcock remade one of his films (forget which one) which wasn't that old.

 

[Cena's Little Helper]

Sequels that come within five years of their predecessors are all on us. Very few studios will resist the temptation to cash in on a recent box-office success, even if they have nothing new and must come up with a rushed, sub-par script (this almost always happens to be the case, but we should at least take partial blame for this as, together, we can be quite the fickle and impatient audience).

One thing we aren't to blame for though is remakes and reboots, especially reboots. While remakes are sometimes made with good intentions (the same thing can be said of reboots, but that's a much rarer occurrence), most of the time these types of films are made out of unoriginality and a seriously lacking work ethic. There's so much innovation in cinema nowadays outside of America that it's not even funny. It sickens me that so few studio executives will get off their lazy, fat asses to venture outside of Hollywood to go and nab a visionary filmmaker from Europe or Asia. Want a great example? Look no further than Nicolas Winding Refn, the Danish filmmaker behind Drive. I saw how many WZers had a hard-on for this film in either the Bar Room or GSD (I forget which one), and I all could think to myself was, "A film as good as Drive could have been made more than a decade ago after Refn's remarkable directorial debut, Pusher." Why did it take Hollywood executives so long to pick up on this guy's genius? My guess is that many of them took the path of least resistance instead of putting in the work and dedication to find someone like Refn (that is to say, they went the remake/reboot route and picked up some American indy director or some consummate hack for pennies to direct their latest piece of shit).

Although my rant's a little bit off topic (sorry, Mitch), I'd just like to say that there seems to be a little light at the end of the tunnel. It looks like Hollywood finally seems to be getting the picture as Chan-wook Park's English debut is coming out next year and Jee-woon Kim was recently hired to direct Last Stand, which sees Arnold Scharzenegger in his first starring role since Terminator 3. Being the film snob that I am, I'll leave Hollywood with this final question: when are you bringing over Bong Joon-Ho, Jacques Audiard, and Romain Gavras?

 

[New Hot Fed]

An interesting thing I've found out is that remaking and rebooting films that aren't that old isn't new. the 1953 version of House Of Wax was a remake of a film from 1933 and Alfred Hitchcock remade one of his films (forget which one) which wasn't that old.

Yea but people had skills back then. I mean there's only one Hitch!

The problem these days is that we know the remakes will be cheap cash ins and will be inferior to the original. It's a given. Even Dawn of the Dead that some have called better than the original, I think it's misguided. It's just a different movie. And I think the original did better with the same idea and it was scarier.

You know what, I'd rather Studios would do sequels than remakes. Instead of say...remaking American Werewolf wich we know won't be as good, why not bring back John Landis, do American Werewolf 2, let him write the script the way he wants and just pick up on things that were left unsolved in the last movie. Explore what that bar, that place was about. And bring back the same Nurse, have David Naughton as the zombie this time follwing a new lead character. It wouldn't be a masterpiece but at least it would be with characters that we like and it would have the same feel.

 

[IT Factor]

The answer to the topic question is a resounding yes. I think Mr. Ebert hit the nail on the head when he said people fear doing something new. And part of that is the nostalgia effect of course. Movie buffs and fans alike revere a film and remember it so fondly that a remake, reboot, or sequel is irresitable. In some cases, the reboot/remake is a great modern update to a classic that remains true in acting and quality to what came before it. However, most of the time the update is inferior in every imaginable way to the original and their sequels. Especially in horror films, which I am a huge fan of.


For Nightmare on Elm Street, Jackie Earl Haley had impossible cult classic shoes to fill with Robert Englund. Englund brought a unique approach to the Elm Street movies that no one could duplicate or make their own with a different approach. Englund's Freddy Krueger was dark, funny, and complicated in the same package that endeared him to audiences via relatability. Haley lacked most of those same qualities in the remake that made it vastly inferior to the original. The Biography Channel had a 2-part documentary with the cast & crew of "Elm Street" films that was insightful and fun to watch. Anyone who wishes to know why those films were so great should watch that to understand them.

As for the Friday the 13th remake, it was decent. It just wasn't the same film and took alot of different routes in story that didn't have the same effect that the other films in that franchise did. Plus, the new Jason didn't have the mannerisms that Kane Hodder did that made the character unique and identifiable.

Don't get me started on the Rob Zombie Halloween films. They proved that Zombie is a dopehead who only cashed in on Halloween popularity and didn't remain true to the core film that the original created. The characters outright sucked and didn't have the same range or depth that the John Carpenter films brought to the genre. Both the 13th and Halloween films had documentaries as well on the Biography channel that really brought you inside what the films meant to horror film fans.

The only others I'm interested in as far as sequels and reboots/remakes are concerned are action films, comedies, and dramas. Each of these genres have good and bad remakes that are hit-or-miss with fans embracing them or hating them outright. I like a good superhero remake or reboot, but, they lose alot in updated translations that make them inferior to their originals as well. Mostly Batman & Superman in that arena. Spiderman didn't have as much fanbase as those two, which is why that film still has potential to be great. The older Spiderman wasn't as well-known which is why only Tobey Mcquire or the reboot will be remembered.

The end result is that reboots, remakes, and sequels are essential part of our society. Every generation wants to add to a mythology or franchise by putting their own spin on it. Are we to blame? Yes. It's a needed reflection of where our society is though at the particular time each is updated. I enjoy them for what they are and don't spend alot of time trying to analyze it. It's entertainment, so enjoy.

 

[Silviya]

In my opinion that is just a different way of thinking and seeing something. As if the remakes and the sequels are done in a good manner then this can be good. But If the thought and the main theme of the story is missing then this is surely our fault.

 

[IT Factor]

In my opinion that is just a different way of thinking and seeing something. As if the remakes and the sequels are done in a good manner then this can be good. But If the thought and the main theme of the story is missing then this is surely our fault.

I can agree with you here to some extent. If the intentions are to actually add something to a franchise and reboot/sequel, then it can be useful. Unfortunately, most attempts at reboots, remakes, and sequels are simple solely to cash in on a famous series. That's where the nostalgia effect can work against you and not for you. Especially if quality is your target.