Yeah, why would you want to throw money at a bad concept when you could easily squeeze out some money from a remake of a loved film?

I'll take the former.


...

just give me a good film version/adaptation of the Silver Surfer - and I'll shut up.

The answer is simple: money. Remaking something, at least in the mind of a big Hollywood studio, gives them automatic box-office cache. If it worked once, they figure it will work again. Why are there so many 80s remakes? The audience for all of these movies have moved on to video games, why watch the sniper when you can be him online? Studios desperately think, and apparently they're at least partially right, that nostalgia is a good way to get people into seats. Remakes can of course be successful: The Fly, The Thing. Invasion of the Body Snatchers-but that require a talented director to reconceptualize the ideas at the heart of a story for a new era. Hollywood doesn't care about ideas, they care about merchandising, special FX, and cheap thrills, and since that's usually enough to cover the box office overhead, why bother making the film any good when you can cash in on a pre-sold name?

That's what I said.

My point is though that Snyder didn't bring anything new to the table. If the Dawn of the Dead remake was just called something else, it'd be fine. But as a remake of one of the pillars of the whole genre, it doesn't bring enough to justify what's new. It's a fun zombie flick, but not much else.

Not at all. In fact, the best thing about remakes is that they usually get proper releases and remasters for the original films like the new 4K Robocop. If remaking Predator will finally get that film a proper release, I'm all for it. But sometimes something is so vile and horrible, like the A Nightmare on Elm Street remake, that it actually desecrates something beautiful.

Starting a Kickstarter for a Bucky Larson remake, any interest?

Except they aren't idiots, because for them, a)

Kitano's auto-wreck actually made him more handsome.

.....Okay, back to thread....

That could be said of just about every Zombie/Living Dead film since DotD Shit, ROMERO himself can't even give us anything as witty and socially relevant that's also entertaining. He keeps trying but he keeps missing.



Remakes DO NOT "desecrate" the originals. The originals are always there and will always stand on their own. Hell, even the Remakes can either stand on their own or fail miserably.

I swear, some of you act as if Hollywood makes the Gov pull all copies of Original films out of Public hands when remakes get produced. This is simply NOT the case.

I still think that Day of the Dead is underrated. And while you're right to some extent, I still think that as an example, Danny Boyle's 28 Days Later, which came out around the same time as Snyder's DOTD remake, while derivative, offered up its scares with more intelligence, social commentary, and actual character development.

Actually, from what I understand, Lucas HAS tried to get rid of prints of the original versions of the original trilogy, and even hacked up the negative to create a new version to better fit with other installments. An outlier, but it's a big one.

There's a brilliant movie in there somewhere, but there's some extended periods where nothing happens other than Captain Rhodes yelling at people.

While that is all indeed true, it always irks me that when I list my favorite horror films as Carrie, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Halloween, Black Christmas, The Wicker Man, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Dawn of the Dead, Friday the 13th, The Fog, A Tale of Two Sisters, and Let The Right One In, and have to qualify all of those with "The original, not the remake".

If Day of the Dead's reputation pales when held up against Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead, it's because fanboys and critics got the message all too clear: with Day of the Dead, Romero is through fucking around with allegory.

This. I'm tired of saying the name of a classic movie and having people say "which one?" The one that doesn't suck, that's which one.

Considering that Hollywood has done remakes since the very beginning, I'm not sure why this is continually brought up like it's new.

The fact is that making a new thing is riskier than remaking an old thing. The people who put up the money the first time took the risk and it paid off. And there are countless failed projects and failed studios that never get mentioned again because it didn't pay off.

As a business person (and making movies is about making money, not about making art), why would you dig something out of the failed bin? It failed. But if you dig out of the "worked" bin, you have a better chance of making it work again. And Hollywood has ALWAYS operated that way.

There are still plenty of new films coming out every year and you don't have to see the remakes or stop watching the beloved originals...so what's the problem again?

The Carrie remake is absolutely dreadful. I have no idea how they roped Julianne Moore into it (well, I guess bags of cash persuaded her).

It's not worth a rental, possibly a free viewing when it comes to Starz or another channel on cable.

We will agree to disagree on "Day". It, Like 28 Days Later was a fun romp for any Living Dead fan, but it wasn't "all that". As far as 28 Days Later, a film I enjoyed, the social commentary...was nothing we haven't seen before. "man's own arrogance causes his destruction" yeah...heard that. "People are savages when pushed" yeah knew that...

So please tell me what was so intelligent about how the film "offered up its scares". I hope this won't become a "it's better because it's a foreign film" breakdown....



Well, that's 1....

True, but back then, cinema was young enough that at least there weren't many tried and true classics, and these days, many good films are dragged out and remade just to cash in on presold names. I know that this is because that it's easier to do and that money is the primary financial motivator. I get that. The better question is why audience are willing to return to the well when something worked perfectly fine the first time. Just watch that one again on DVD. Beyond which, even back in the 70s, even some really good genre movies were basically repackaging older movies with new special effects. Jaws is full of homages to Creature From the Black Lagoon, Aliens borrow from Them!, Alien has shades of Fiend Without A Face, Planet of the Vampires, It! There Terror From Beyond Space, and so forth, all glossed up with new special effects, big-budget exploitation movies. At least it was novel then. Now it's just stale photocopies of photocopies. Cinema is so financially driven that its harder than ever to evolve. Shaking the camera and scratching the film (Or adding scratched effects to your digital scenes) does not make it the 70s. Those films were a byproduct of specific time and social conditions. Why not make something which actually asks serious questions about the world now rather than wallowing in nostalgia? That's right, because no one will pay for it.

It wasn't anything new, but at least it was about something. That's more than can be said for Snyder's film. 28 Days Later was hardly groundbreaking or a masterpiece, but at least it has something on its mind.

By that logic, I should like the DOTD remake better because it was shot on 35mm instead of digital . Nothing inherently, I just think that it actually had some subtext rather than just being a movie about "zombies eating flesh! Lets use this to create action sequences! As many as possible!" Romero's comment that The Walking Dead is "just a soap opera" got a lot of flak, but I think he's right.

It's a big and brutal one. To say nothing of various other directors who've tinkered with their past films digitally or otherwise instead of moving on. It doesn't relate to relate remakes except tangentially, but it's an indication of filmmakers not being able to let things go.

But this is "that moment" when you have a chance to EDUCATE and introduce someone to the ORIGINAL if they don't know anything about it.

Arf! Arf! Arf!

I hate that too. "I love Halloween too! Rob Zombie is crazy lolz!"

"Wicker Man? I don't know bro... Con Air was a way better Nic Cage flick!"

The 40th anniversary of Death Wish is coming up this summer. Time for a remake where Paul Kersey actually takes care of the punks who turned his life upside down.

Starring Seth Rogen...or Michael Cera...or Jonah Hill...or all three!!!

I saw the DOTD remake first, in theaters. I liked it but it could have done without some generic narrative. I did like running zombies, Sarah P's character, and that sniper dude. He was awesome. There were some other neat little things too. Then I saw the original, that film is a lot stronger but it does have some aged elements now. I think a remake for it could have worked better if it could have taken itself more serious and relied itself on a stronger story than its flash.

There are some good films that could have benefitted with an update. Though some stand so strong that they it is pointless to do so. A film like TDTEST could have been something like that. Unfortunately it wasn't so strong at times, though I did enjoy it.