ShaunHuston
Posts 26
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8/25/2007 2:50 PM
posted awhile ago
Directors and remakes
Over on the Top 5 group, tmoney mentioned the forthcoming remake of 3:10 to Yuma in one of his contributions to the Westerns thread. This got me thinking about other directors who have, seemingly at least, chosen to cash in their chips from a particularly good year or stretch of years on a remake. In this case it looks as if James Mangold is turning Walk the Line around into 3:10 to Yuma. I also thought of Peter Jackson and King Kong, Gus Van Sant and Psycho, and Steven Soderbergh and Ocean's 11. This got me wondering if there are other examples of filmmakers choosing this path, and, if so, who and what was the film, and also why a director might choose to do this. Remakes are, more often than not, greeted with growns and skepticism, even though the record is actually mixed (Soderbergh's Ocean's 11, for example, is a much better film than the original, which is almost painfully bad and boring). But, given the widespread perception that remakes are jokes or wrong somehow, what is the attraction for the filmmaker?
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tmoney
Posts 181
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8/25/2007 8:54 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Directors and remakes
It seems like people shudder at the idea of a remake. I think with Peter Jackson, the attraction was just that he loved the original so much that he wanted to remake it with all the spectacle that today's computers could afford. For Gus Van Sant, he has always been interested in excercise kind of like Von Trier's obsession with constraint. Watch Gerry (phenomenal) or Elephant. I think for Van Sant, Psycho was a "project" film or an excercise in filmmaking and discipline. Other times, i'm sure a studio thinks they will be able to make a load of money off a remake like Ocean's or Italian Job.
I'm actually looking forward to Rob Zombies interpretation of Halloween. I actually enjoyed both of his previous films, (in all their depraved glory). I'm not too impressed with the trailers though.
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Risselada
Posts 1368
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8/27/2007 1:53 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Directors and remakes
Yeah sometimes I think there may be the challenge of the exercise to it. The Coen brother remade The Ladykillers, but they said they didn't even rewatch it before they started working on it (who knows if that's true). But they totally redit it to put it in the American south. I always thought they were fundamentally American. And the characters are totally different. And the whole idea of some big job or a hiest gone wrong is pretty much right in line with the work they had done up to that point already. They also plugged in elements of other older movies like Sullivan's Travels.
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joem18b
Posts 583
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8/27/2007 5:49 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Directors and remakes
A subset is directors who remake their own movies. Sometimes it's because they were successfull overseas and get financing for a remake in Hollywood (13 Tzameti). Sometimes it's because they're successfull enough in Hollywood to remake an earlier movie with new technology (DeMille, Hitchcock). Etc. One link that lists a few examples: http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/twitch-o-meter-rebirthing-your-own-movie/
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Risselada
Posts 1368
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8/27/2007 11:44 PM
posted awhile ago
Re: Directors and remakes
 joem18b: A subset is directors who remake their own movies. Sometimes it's because they were successfull overseas and get financing for a remake in Hollywood (13 Tzameti). Sometimes it's because they're successfull enough in Hollywood to remake an earlier movie with new technology (DeMille, Hitchcock). Etc. One link that lists a few examples: http://twitchfilm.net/site/view/twitch-o-meter-rebirthing-your-own-movie/
I think I could see certain situations where remaking your own movie would have real appeal. For instance I have an idea for a movie right now that I plan on making. It's going to be extremely relatively cheap to make. And I can make it that way. But if I was suddenly given a bunch of money to remake it, I would definitely love the chance to use more resources to add elements that would hit it home so much harder. Of course many of these listed don't really seem to be that sort of situation. Or maybe they are. It's hard to tell.
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