Why Holliwood cannot kick the remake habbit ,why most of them fail at the box office

[Garovorkin]

In past years I used to look forward to the latest crop of movies, going to the movies was to me a thrill, but not anymore, Why? because Hollywood rather then give us anything new and original.would rather play it safe and pump out remakes most of which are just plain awful like The Omen, Invasion,War of the Worlds, or reboot really bad franchises like Halloween of the even worse Friday the 13th series. In addition Michel Bay is supposed to be involved in rebooting of Nightmare on Elm Street, god knows what thats going be like.In the pipe line we have the Day the Earth Stood still with Keanu Reeve as Klaatu, please, I don't want to see Gort and Klaatu's Excellent adventure. The Hollywood honchos need to start finding original and new, not stale and old. They want to know where to get new ideas? There are plenty of great books that haven't been made into movies, why can't they go that rout?How many of you out there would like to see a favorite book made into a film How about Enders Game ? Asimov's foundation books for example ? Then there are the the pointless sequels like A V P Requiem for example .The reboot and remakes and sequels would be tolerable if the studios actually hired writers that could come up with good scripts and fresh angles on the re tellings and sequels but they don't seem much interested in putting out a good product , because it if bombs ,well so what, the DVD market which accounts for more of their income then theaters will allow them to make money even if its a stinker, In past years Movie executives who put out bad movies got sacked ,but not anymore, The problem with this is that the movies are increasingly failing at the box office and sooner or later thats going to effect the dvd end, because why would you want to own on dvd a bad movie that flopped in the theater? Hollywood looses and so do we audience. Any thoughts on this topic at all? anyone?

 

[Garovorkin]

Okay maybe this is not such a glamorous topic but it does have relevance.It seems that nowadays television seems to be the innovator and Hollywood is creatively stuck in neutral.Throughout television's history both movies and television have swapped place on this issue , One in creative assent, the other in creative stagnation and decent.

 

[GKarsEye]

No one's dissing you by not responding, it's just that this kind of stuff gets hashed and re-hashed all the time, especially on a forum about popular entertainment.

My position is that no period if better or worse than any other, it's just that we have selective memories. There are some people who love foreign films and think that they're better, while not realizing that only the cream of the crop makes its way over here, and the legions of sub-par and mediocre movies are forgotten. Likewise, there are some that love old movies, wallowing the "golden age" or whatever, again not realizing that for every Casablanca there were dozens, if not hundreds, of factory-style produced hack, cheesy movies.

Popular entertainment is a quantity venture, not a quality one. Add commercialization to the mix, and you have to worry about making a profit, adhering to legal standards, focus groups, etc. And it's still the best way to go (sure beats the government making movies). So the way I see it, instead of worrying about the bad stuff, celebrate the good stuff that somehow makes it through the gauntlet of obstacles to quality and expression. And, you know- there's still so much good stuff. Too much, actually, making couch potatoes out of us all.

Movies are just not as big a deal to us as it used to be. Neither is music. Gone are the days when people passively anticipated the release of the new Cary Grant movie or Beatles album. In a world of internet and video games and information mobility, where irony is a dominant form of humor, we're a much more media-savvy generation. One ironic outcome of this is that we're much more tolerant of crap. 300 and Snakes on a Plane get a following of people who know that they're stupid.

 

[KoshFan]

Okay maybe this is not such a glamorous topic

The board has quiet periods when no one posts because we're all asleep or off doing other things; you posted during one of them. You have to give people a day or two at least before feeling neglected.

 

[Garovorkin]

Jkarseye Your point about Hollywood Movies being quantity animal and more then Quality is very true, and if you think about this might be in part a case of history repeating itself. Before Television the movie studios owned the theater chains, so they had to produce on a constant basis, products for their theaters so they produced a ton of films, now the notable difference was that then they tended to produce better quality films,( even their b movies), because they simply had to, there was no fall backs for them like dvd 's or anything at all for that matter, A studio that produced alot of stinkers tended to not have paying customers, but before it would not get to that point because the movie investors on the east cost would bounce the studio head. In this day and age different model is in force here with dvd's studios and production are geared toward quantity but the difference is that here quality is not an issue because for now people are buy the movies anyway, so there seems to be less incentive to produce quality as long as the money keeps flowing. At eh movie level we get more to choose from but less quantity.

 

[GKarsEye]

I would actually argue that the DVD "fallback" increases opportunity for more interesting, daring films. It basically indefinitely extends the lifetime of a movie in the public sphere. Instead of disappearing forever, it's always out there.

The one thing that effects movies, as well as music, is that they increasingly cater to more niche markets, rather than having some universal pop culture thing. The Oscars, Grammys, Miss America, Ed Sullivan, Saturday Night Live, the new Pink Floyd album- these things would at least be noticed, if not effect, everybody. Now, they're more likely to just be part of the background noise. The consumer has so much more power over what and how they watch, between the 'net and DVDs and DVRs and the like.

 

[Cell]

Remakes in and of themselves are not bad. They are just like any other movies that are produced, all up to the people making them. You get good original movies and terrible original movies. The same is true of remakes, you get both good and terrible. For instance the remake of The Hills Have Eyes was tremendous, easily better than the original and one of the greatest horror movies ever made. On the other hand for the sequel to that, and technically the remake of the original THHE2, they got rid of the director, Alexandre Aja, and the movie ended up being terrible.

So, to summarize, remakes can be both good and bad, and are no different than Hollywood proper in that regard.

 

[Alluveal]

I don't mind remakes, especially in these tech-times when we can really do a vision justice and it's not held back by the restraints of visual effects (as I think some stories were back in the day.)

But, it can get annoying when it feels like it's only about exploiting an old film for profit alone and sheer laziness.

 

[Garovorkin]

Since the movie company owns the rights to the original movies, they don't have to pay out anything so from an economic stand point remakes make sense. But does see as though remakes for the most part are all about exploiting. Good writing or a good concepts for the movie seems to be an afterthought as far as the studio heads are concerned. Which is unfortunate because the movie goer plunks down 10 dollars for a movie ticket only to end up getting cheated in the bargain. It s very shortsighted think because the movie company is cheating itself not only out of revenue from the the theater run, but future revenue in the form of sequels. One important thing to consider is that if its a great movie the they customer might come back more then once and it will the foundation for a sequel which will earn additional revenue. Plus people will more then likely by or rent the dvd more then once, more money. By production a bad product thatey are costing themselves income and ultimately this will negatively impact dvd sales or said stinker movie.

 

[Alluveal]

Good writing can be found every now and then from a big studio. Usually, you have to go to the art-house theaters for something substantial these days. Every now and then, you'll get a gem, though.

Some of the remakes I see are useless: The Dukes of Hazzard, Speed Racer, Get Smart, etc.

Pointless and silly.

 

[Garovorkin]

I would also add such movies as Steve Martins The Pink Panther, The Omen remake, the Haunting of Hill House, which was a sad pathetic remake of the Robert Wise classic 1963 version, The Stepford Wives another Nicole Kidman turkey to bookend her film invasion and let's not forget the shot for shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock's Psyco.