For Hollywood, a movie remake is a great way to grab the attention of audiences and make a lot of cash. For others — it is just another shallow film to avoid. It’s time for Hollywood to cut back on the remakes and allow more innovative ideas to show on the big screen.
While remakes financially succeed more compared to original films, the audience is more likely to dislike them. For example, the Box Office Mojo website states that the 2016 remake of “Ghostbusters” made about $128.4 million in the box office, but the movie has been bombarded with negative reviews. The official trailer for this remake of “Ghostbusters” has over one million dislikes on YouTube.
Following that, remakes usually have a bad reputation to begin with. Hollywood usually only remakes movies to make a quick buck, and very few of those remakes have any true thought or heart put into them. Of course, not all remakes are bad. More popular remakes are “It” from 2017, “King Kong” from 2005 and “Ocean’s Eleven” from 2001.
Unfortunately, it seems as if Hollywood is starting to run out of ideas since remakes and reboots of series are announced so frequently now. Hollywood should hold off on remakes to allow more ideas to come through as there are so many original stories that have yet to be told. Fresh, new ideas are waiting to be brought to theaters with a more diverse cast and more diverse plots. When Hollywood only alters older movies, they offer few newer additions since the same story is just being retold in a different age.
In addition, remakes usually fail to capture the essence that the previous films hold. This is mainly because directors dilute the film and cut out important information in order to appeal to a broader audience. As a result, the fans who are more familiar with the series will not appreciate the remake and prefer the original.
“I think its ok if they are really old, but I think they should keep the exact storyline, but use modern graphics,” senior English major Heather Armstrong said. “Otherwise the newer generations can’t relate and retain the message or lesson that’s conveyed.”
People watching films like to compare the remakes to the predecessor and original source material. Because of this, the audience tends to have low standards going into it because they expect a lot of information to be cut from the final film seen in theaters.
Remakes don’t have to be completely gone from theaters, but Hollywood needs to give original content more of a chance. By allowing more original movies to be produced, more unique films will have the opportunity to come alive.