REMAKES AND REBOOTS

I suspect it's always been this way, snsurone. Do you ever look up an adaptation, from the 1940s say, and find it was already filmed in 1916, 1924, 1936 and 1942 .... yet the version you just watched was from 1949? I know I do ...

Hollywood certainly deserves their share of the blame for the dearth of variety (in mainstream films I mean from here on out). However I think audiences too need to shoulder some since they're the ones that continue to go see the latest installment for franchises over something completely original and unique. Yet still complain about Hollywood's said lack of originality. 

While it is certainly true that classic era Hollywood felt free to reuse plots, I think the situation is quite different today. (This is remembering that adapting the same novel or play several times is not a remake or necessarily a lack of imagination.) The re-doing of an older film in the past often took place under a new title with some changes made in an attempt, I believe, to slip the new film past the audience which, of course, did not have home video and could not watch any movie they wanted any time. It often worked. Neither did they use numbers for each new film (Spiderman 2 Kazillion). Most often, the “remakes” were not major “prestige” productions but “everyday” releases. An exception might be when a well known film is remade into an “A” picture musical, e.g. You Can’t Run Away From It / It Happened One Night and In The Good Old Summer Time / The Shop Around The Corner. There were series back in the old days with continuing characters but they weren’t sequels to each other and got replaced by TV – people are still watching the modern equivalent of Charlie Chan and Doctor Kildare.

In today’s world, a remake of an older film, a feature from a classic TV series (or SNL sketch but thankfully these have mostly died out), or a direct sequel is a cause for major marketing that trumpets its remake nature. These are major costly productions that can make or break a studio but that wear their remake/sequel qualities on their sleeves, making the fact a major lure into the multiplex. The “lack of imagination” is admitted and reveled in. They clog the theaters (and clog the brains).

One last comment: I realize that there are exceptions to everything I’ve said (they will be no doubt pointed out to me and that’s fine). I know I am speaking in a general fashion. Yet, as far as trends go, I think I have described the current climate.

Though I've not seen either are these not actually adaptations of the books as opposed to remakes of the films.  None of the earlier film screenplay writers seem to be credited.

The most recent Ben Hur is actually the 5th adaptation of the novel
 by Lew Wallace.  I assume the classic version you refer to is the 1959 version...well that was third adaptation itself.

It's always been a little odd that once a lesser known book has a successful adaptation that adaptation is seen as almost untouchable or definitive.  It's almost as if the source is not so important.  Yet there are rarely complaints when yet another adaptation of for example, Romeo & Juliet or A Christmas Carol appears on our screens


I say nothing is or should be immune from being remade.  Some are bad, some are good, a lot are interesting by comparison.  

The way I see it access to new cinema is much easier now...take away the reboots, remakes & re-adaptations, we still probably have  more access to new "original" cinema from home and abroad, than we had in the 10 years ago and beyond.

TV is dead anyways. I'm surprised any modern television show brings in very many viewers. I guess some people will watch anything.