Are Remakes Rebooting Cinema?

In recent years, an epidemic has risen in Hollywood. The increasing decline in original stories has allowed an over-saturation of remakes and unnecessary sequels to take the stage. But why is there such an abundance of unoriginal movies and how is it affecting the cinema going experience? 

The idea of a remake is nothing new in cinema. In fact, movie remakes have been around as long as film itself, going as far back as 1896 with Georges Méliès’ silent film ‘Une partie de cartes’, a remake of The Lumière brother's ‘Partie d'écarté’, a film that came out earlier that same year. For much cinema’s history, remakes have been commonplace but it seems like today, they are swiftly taking over the box office. In June of 2022, Statista released a chart of worldwide box office figures for the highest grossing movies of every year.  

The graph shows that the mid 1970’s and 1990s were a hot spot for original movies, as we see a lot of today’s cult favourites premiere for the first time. Pioneers of the blockbuster such as 1977’s ‘Star Wars’, 1981’s ‘Raiders of the Lost Ark’ and 1993’s ‘Jurassic Park’ were the highest grossing movies of their respective years. However, did this without always necessarily having to rely on the audiences’ pre-knowledge of the franchise.  

Because of their successes, studios realised that they could get audiences to see movies like this again and again, so they did. The blockbusters mentioned previously have all been remade or adapted at least once for modern audiences, bringing in consistent financial success, but varying critical success.  

Just last week, Rotten Tomatoes released their list of the 34 most anticipated movies of 2023. Without fail, every film is either an adaptation like ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’, a sequel to a long-established franchise like ‘Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny’ or remakes of classics like ‘The Exorcist’ and ‘The Little Mermaid’. But why is there such an over-saturation of these remakes? 

Michael Bay’s series of movies based on the Transformers franchise, which began in 2007. This action filled series seem to perform better and better with every release but have never had a Rotten Tomatoes critic score over 58% (until Bay stopped directing them in 2017). 

Studios are almost guaranteed a commercial hit if they release movies based on already established and popular intellectual property (IP), regardless of whether the movie is good or not. In a 2016 article by Amanda Ann Klein and R. Barton Palmer on Why Hollywood Is Built on Unoriginal Ideas, they state that “The problem with contemporary commercial cinema is that it’s more concerned with making money than it is with telling quality stories or creating indelible characters”. But is our taste in films affecting the selection or is the selection affecting our tastes? What does the audience actually think of these recycled stories?  

In a series of interviews, movie goers across the country, who fit between the target audience of these blockbusters (ages 15 to 21), were asked what they thought about the abundance of remakes in cinemas today. 

18-year-old Tobi Ojo from London, told us that “It’s not really something I had an opinion on prior to being asked... but I think sometimes it dilutes the original, but it can be done well.”  

Another interviewee, 15-year-old Mateen Adeleke from Bristol added to this sentiment. “I think the main reason they're overdone is because it’s easy. It’s quite easy to remake something and make it into what you may think is better. Sequels are fine and reboots are lazy but sometimes it’s cool to see a newer version for the new generation.”  

On the contrary not all audience members have the patience for endless repeats of the same movie. Some of the slightly older interviewees lamented on the over-saturation of Hollywood remakes. 

21-year-old film student, Archie Attwood from Oxford said that he’d “rather just see more original films; I just feel like they require a bit more thought and it opens you to a different world, instead of the same thing.” 

Media student Joy Sigbeku from Coventry added “I feel like we should leave some stuff for the past and stop trying to re-adapt it. I don’t know who they’re trying to satisfy, but if it’s for the younger generation, cool.”  

“People like going to the cinema and knowing what to expect, but it’s not always good to stay in your comfort zone” - Thema Osborne (19) 

Industry juggernauts such as Disney, are the biggest culprits of making movies based on adaptations and remakes, pioneering a whole industry based on it with their secret weapon: Marvel Studios. Wiping out any competition when it comes to the box office, all of Marvel Studio’s films are superhero movies adapted from comic books. Marvel understands what it takes to make audiences flock to the theatre and keep coming back for each instalment; they have the numbers to prove it.  

As shown in the previously mentioned Statista chart, in past ten years, half of the top highest grossing movies of each year worldwide were Marvel movies, despite being critiqued as “amusement park” movies by Martin Scorsese. Some may attribute their success to the rising popularity of the superhero movie genre, but it’s more likely the public interest Marvel has generated due to the attention put into telling compelling stories. As many may not know, Marvel’s big dogs like ‘Iron Man’ and ‘The Avengers’ were considered B-list characters before the success of their movies. We can see what happens when this care isn't considered. 

In an attempt to rival Disney’s success, Wasner Bros aimed to release their own connected movie universe, based on the DC comics, in the vein of the Marvel Cinematic Universe. The only difference is that DC, with recognisable IP just as popular as Marvel’s, failed to garner the success that Marvel seems to have in their muscle memory. 

DC movies more often than not underperform relative to their budget, with almost half of their interconnected movies struggling to surpass a 58% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes. Why? The simplest answer is that Marvel higher ups, like Kevin Feige, put more care into the production and continuity of their movies, despite them being unoriginal.  

Marvel vs. DC: Ratings and box office numbers – Trevor Wheelwright, Reviews.org 

The problem with basing movies on already established IP, is that studios seem to believe that rebooting or adapting something audiences are familiar with as a film guarantees ticket sales. When in reality the extent of public interest, determines how it will sell.  

For example, in 2010, industry publications reported that production on an adaptation of the boardgame ‘Battleship’, starring A-list actors like Liam Neeson and Alexander Skarsgård, had begun production. A board game, that features no characters, story or much (if any) public interest. Hasbro had planned other board game adaptations to follow it, such as a ‘Monopoly’ and ‘Hungry, Hungry Hippos’ movie. 

With an estimated budget of $220 million, it did as well as you would expect an action blockbuster based on ‘Battleships’ would, only earning back $303 million. This is considered a flop when you remember that a film needs to make at least 3 times its production budget to be considered profitable. In their article Klein and Palmer say: “It isn’t strictly accurate to call these films “adaptations” of board games—Hungry, Hungry Hippos and Battleship are brands, names, and images, but they’re not narratives or characters.” 

Sony Pictures made the same mistake in 2017, when they entered production for an animated feature based on emojis. Rotten Tomato's top critic and The Atlantic’s Megan Garber wrote in her review of the film that “The Emoji Movie is not just a critical flop, but also a metaphor for a Hollywood that is struggling to find the line between branding that audiences love and branding that audiences resent.” 

But as shown in the box office numbers of remakes like 2019s, ‘The Lion King’, a lot of people like these movies. It wouldn’t be unreasonable to say that our liking to something recognisable in cinema has been taken advantage of and manipulated by the industry. With the recent merger with 20th Century Fox in 2019, Disney is now responsible for the more existing IP than ever. In a quote from Emily St James’s Vox article from the same year, Disney now “has thousands of titles newly at its fingertips”. However, this comes with a depleting variation in our options of what we can watch and what companies we give our money to. It’s a little scary to think that most of the movies and tv we consume comes from a single source. James added “it’s hard to imagine that we’re not heading toward a universe where essentially all the major media companies in the world are owned by three or maybe four parent companies”.  

In the words of Klein and Palmer “Multiplicities threaten not simply cinema’s ability to be seen as art, but it's very ability to exist”. 

Regardless studios know the commercial success that can come from remakes, so they don’t seem to be going anywhere anytime soon. It’s just a matter of trial and error to figure out what sticks.