Hollywood Churns Out Too Many Remakes

Movie creators have it rough nowadays. New technologies improve many aspects of the movie making process like better special effects and an easier editing process. But with movies having been around since the 1890s, almost all of the new ideas have been put on the big screen already. Writers now have a tough time creating original movies without having to take at least some ideas from previous movies or stories. Because of this, producers and directors have been putting out way more remakes recently, with countless more on the way. Has Hollywood been putting out too may remakes or are many movies long overdue for them?

Just in 2017, there have already been five big budget remake/reboot films in theaters, “Kong: Skull Island,” “Power Rangers”, “Beauty and the Beast,” “Ghost in The Shell,” and “Smurfs: The Lost Village.” With “Kong: Skull Island,” this is the movie’s second remake in recent history with the first one being Peter Jackson’s “King Kong” in 2005 that remade the 1976 “King Kong,” which was already a remake of the 1933 original. A quick search reveals that there are many more in the works. Once example is “It”, a psychological 2-part horror miniseries that features a shapeshifting clown that torments a group of kids throughout their lives. The original show came out in 1990 and the trailer for the new movie dropped on March 29, and while the trailer look good, the original series was already amazing and doesn’t need to be rebooted.

An example of a completely un-necessary remake was the “Blair Witch” that came out in September 2016. It’s a remake of the cult classic 1999 horror movie “Blair Witch Project” that brought the found-footage style of horror movie to the mainstream media. It was the first of its kind with the entire movie being show through the camera of one of the characters. It also had a very disturbing atmosphere and didn’t rely on jump-scares to make the viewer uncomfortable, which the remake had plenty of. The subtly of the original is completely gone as it relies on loud, booming noises to get peoples heart rates going. It’s boring, bad, and unnecessary.

Disney has also jumped fully on the remake train. It has made the decision to make live-action remakes of all of the classic animated movies. It has already put out “Cinderella” in 2015, “The Jungle Book” in 2016, and the previously mentioned “Beauty and the Beast” this year. “Mulan” is scheduled for a November 2018 release with “Aladdin” coming soon after that.

We don’t need all these remakes of classic Disney movies. The memories of these movies we watched as children are still fresh in our minds. A remake threatens to taint or take away from the original, especially of the movie is bad. While “The Jungle Book” and “Beauty and the Beast” remakes had mostly positive reviews, the “Cinderella” remake had many mixed reviews. Some saying that it was a nice take on the classic Cinderella story, while others said is was boring with nothing going on for the gist of the movie. Good or bad, Disney will keep to the remake plan because it’s a very effective moneymaker. Each one of them had made a huge amount of money, even “Cinderella,” the worst of the bunch has made almost 550 million dollars in box-office sales.

While Hollywood may be struggling with new movie ideas, an un-ending stream of remakes is not the way to go. Original scripts are hard to come by nowadays, with remakes, reboots, and sequels dominating the box-office. While movies are there to tell a story, it still and business and money is the most important. With remakes and reboots being easier to make than original stories, they will unfortunate continue to be made till the end of the movie industry.