A theory on horror remakes...

[Joe the Destroyer]

Have you ever noticed the names attached to the recent horror remakes?  There are some names very familiar, usually listed as "producers." 

Tobe Hooper worked on the TCM remake, and TCM: The Beginning
Wes Craven worked on The Hills Have Eyes movies and Last House on the Left
Glen Morgan worked on the Black Christmas remake
Both Hideo Nakata (Ringu) and Takashi Shimizu (Ju-on) have directed American remakes to some of their films
Mark Rosman worked on Sorority Row
Sean S. Cunningham worked on the Ft13 reboot
George Romero is working on The Crazies remake
Tom Holland is supposedly directing, or at least working on, the Child's Play remake
John Carpenter worked on The Fog, and is supposedly working on the They Live remake.

Some of these folks, Tobe Hooper, Wes Craven, and George Romero in particular, have been called washed up.  Others have only made moderate names for themselves in the film industry.  In fact, a large portion of old school horror directors are being called washed up.  People say they've lost their touch and that their new movies aren't scary; that they've become contemporary.   I'm not saying this is absolutely the case, but I have heard a lot of people say this.

Damn it, hold on.  Accidentally prematurely posted this...

Do you think this attitude toward these directors has spurred them to become producers or other crew members?  Is it that these guys want to relive their glory days, and feel they can only do so by reliving them vicariously through other directors?  Do they ask for these remakes, or at least welcome them, because this is their way of going back to a time when they were widely considered brilliant? 

If not, then do you think that including these directors in remakes of their films is the studio's way of trying to get the film as close to its roots as possible? 

What do you think? 

[Skull]

hehe not really...

A remake is a way to protect the original license/copyright issue from the original film, usually when the original director is producing their movie they are doing this to protect their original film. I'm not sure if its based on the writers guild agreement or something connected towards the Actors Guild. (If you look at some of the older films you will notice that they were also remade with a similar cast)

Other reason to remake a movie...

Some directors actually has a better vision of the film. The Thing and The Fly are good examples. I also think they were able to remake the movie with ease since the original film is way past the remake age. Film making before video recorders was quite different, it cost money to use film so people were careful on what they actually make. (also direct to video sales was not an option until the late 1980's)

I do think films like Black Christmas and Roller Ball were remade because somebody got their hands on the license and quickly remade the films with the hopes to capture the cult fan base. There has been several bad remakes and most were done by people that didnt work on the original pieces but has the script license. (again this explains why toober, wes, carpernter, etc are producing their remakes)


Why? several reasons...

Hollywood believes a remake can capture the next generation, in theory (for example) those that seen the original Nightmare on Elm Street were kids/teenagers and the remake 20 years later would attract the adults and their kids/teenagers, so the protection of the orginal films is a few years.

Also, most films do not survive after a long time (this is based on old Hollywood filmmaking) since many films are lost, even before the storage fire of the 1960's... Although the film storage is much better today, I wouldnt be surprised to see if somebody written this into the contract and kept it in after generations.

The change of filmmaking, from silent to sound pushed a demand to remake films (again this is old Hollywood but I wouldnt be surprised if this was also written into the contract)

[WilliamWeird1313]

Most of the original directors who are "involved" with the remakes are given superficial "executive producer" credits, which typically translates to "his name is on it, and he's gonna receive a couple pennies from it, and he might occasionally nod at something or shake his head at something, but really he's not involved at all."

If, meanwhile, you look at the majority of the directors actually helming these remakes, you'll find that many of them are music video directors or otherwise small-time untested filmmakers looking to breaking into the big-time feature film business. Remakes are often a good way for a studio of doing that. It allows them to test out someone like Marcus Nispel, whose resume prior to TCM and F13 was mostly music videos, in a way that is safe and guarantees them a return on their investment. Instead of giving him a couple million dollars to make some original story that no one knows anything about it and risk losing all their cash if no one goes to see it, they give him a well-known franchise with instant name recognition. Even if he bungles the whole damn movie (which is exactly what he did, multiple times), they're still gonna make a killing at the box office just because of the instant interest ignited by the name "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" itself.