“Carrie,” “Romeo and Juliet,” “The Lone Ranger” and “The Great Gatsby” all have something in common other than simply being films released in 2013. All of these mentioned movies are also recent Hollywood remakes.
There is one common answer to the question; why remake a film? The answer, according to Keene State College film students and professors, is money.
“Hollywood, I worked there, I trained there and as much as I love it, Hollywood is about one thing, and it’s money,” Tom Cook, a film professor at KSC said.
One of Cook’s colleagues, Peter Condon, agreed that money is the main focus for Hollywood producers and directors. Condon said that he thinks Hollywood does not have an original thought and they are solely trying to make money.
He described remakes as a “formula of the past.”
Cook also mentioned that he thought remakes occur because there is always room for improvement. “I guess in my opinion, you would do a remake because there’s something you can do better about it,” Cook said. Louis Watt, a KSC junior majoring in film production, said he thinks Hollywood producers and directors are running out of ideas.
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“[There’s] a guarantee people will be interested in it, because they’ll know about the film already. It was something that was popular already,” Watt said about a film producer’s reasons to create a remake.
According to both film professors and Watt, there are some legal matters that need to be discussed before someone can remake a film.
“Legally I’m sure there are some kinds of rights, depending on how old the original one is,” Watt explained. “Somebody owns the original rights for the movie and the names of characters and everything so they have to go through the process of being approved to use that stuff,” he concluded.
Professor Condon shared the story of a former KSC professor, Kay Linaker (Phillips). She was a film star in the 1930s and 40s according to the International Movie Database. IMDB reported that she wrote the screenplay for the 1958 horror film, “The Blob.”
Condon said Linaker did not receive any percentage of the gross, which she should and could have, but she did not have any rights written up for the screen play.
When it comes to remakes in general, “Somebody owns the rights to that story and there’s a deal to be made. I think it’s whatever deal you can cut,” Cook said. Overall, Cook, Condon and Watt said that they think that film remakes do have potential to be good, sometimes even better than the original.
“Some are pretty good. There have been some remakes that have been better than the original in my opinion. [But] it’s hard to re-do something that is better than the original is if it’s already a classic,” Watt said.
One example of a remake that is better than the original, according to Watt, is “Inglorious Bastards.”
“It might just be that it is an older film, but it [the remake] seemed a lot better,” Watt said.
Condon said he thinks remakes are not always bad, but most of the time it is just the studio in attempts to bring in more money. The most recent Hollywood remake to hit theaters is a remake of an old Hollywood classic thriller. On Oct. 18, 2013, the remake of “Carrie” premiered. Cook, Condon and Watt said they think that “Carrie” will do okay in theaters but will not be able to truly compare to the original Oscar-winning film.
Condon said he is excited to see Julianne Moore’s performance but, “she has big shoes to fill.”
“The new ‘Carrie’ is clearly going to benefit, since it’s much slicker and nice looking, and the effects are clearly going to be better but I don’t think you can improve on the performances,” Cook said, “Sissy Spacek was just amazing.”
Watt, Cook and Condon seemed to all have ideas on what films they would like to remake. Watt said he would like to recreate a “Cirque du Freak” film.
Watt said he loved the books and would like to “make a proper film rendition.”
Condon said he would like to remake Tennessee Williams’ “Night of the Iguana” because it is his favorite play. If Cook could remake a film, he said he would remake the first “Star Trek” motion picture. “I’m a huge ‘treky’,” Cook said.
Whether it is an attempt at creativity or ‘easy’ money, producers and directors choose to create films to tell a story, according to Cook.
“I think effective films stand the test of time, but I think most of the time the two reasons we see remakes is: number one; money and number two is, maybe to give film makers the benefit of the doubt; it’s to pass along an interesting story or concept to a younger generation that might not have seen it,” Cook said.
He continued, “All film making is telling stories. So why do we do it? It’s to pass along our tradition.”
Shannon Flynn can be contacted at sflynn@keene-equinox.com
Rebecca Farr can be contacted at rfarr@keene-equinox.com