With a remake of "Robocop" announced, has the film industry gone remake crazy?

Shockwaves went through the movie world this week when it was announced the treasured 80’s movie “Robocop” would be remade for a modern audience. Actually, ‘shockwaves’ is a bit in accurate. More waves of exasperation at an industry to which, it seems, nothing is sacred any more, as more and more ‘untouchable’ films get the modern update, often forgoing the original’s charm in favour of a cheap, quick affair that depends on a famous name to pull the customer in. But is a remake always a bad idea? This article looks at the pros and cons of remaking old favourites…

Running out of ‘re-imagination’?

First the bad, and one really has to go back about ten years to find a starting point in this modern obsession with remakes. Before 1998, it was deemed that there were a stable of movies that one could not remake. Titles so loved that any studio wishing to do an update would be met with fan hysteria. However, the glass ceiling was broken in the fore mentioned year, when Gus Van Sant made the shock move of remaking Hitchcock’s signature movie, “Psycho”.

Out went Janet Leigh, in came Anne Heche, and the infamous Anthony Perkins was succeeded by the then up-and-coming actor Vince Vaughn. Huge opposition was met to the movie, although Van Sant almost religiously stuck to the original’s nuances- even mistakes made in the first film were purposefully kept in. Only just making it’s money back in worldwide box office, the biggest criticism levelled at the movie was it’s pointlessness- what was the point in remaking a superior film shot-for-shot?

Same Horror, New Faces

The horror genre picked up this idea of remaking classics, particularly picking up momentum in this decade. Another seemingly untouchable film, “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre”, was remade in 2003, produced by action director Michael Bay. Bay repeated this trick again with horror classics “The Hitcher” and “The Amityville Horror”. Outside of Bay’s plundering, “The Fog” and “Halloween” have both got the same treatment in recent years.

Remake or Mistake?

Remake doesn’t necessarily mean ‘bad’, however. A most famous example is the George Clooney-starring “Ocean’s 11”. Whilst there is affection for the original, starring Frank Sinatra and his ‘rat pack’, the 2001 version is widely regarded as superior, spawning two sequels. Often, a remake can be so good it eclipses it’s original. For instance, Jeff Goldblum’s breakthrough movie “The Fly” was in fact a remake of a 1958 B-movie; and Scorsese’s “Cape Fear” replaced the legendary Robert Mitchum with Robert De Niro, and the remake is considered at least as good as it’s predecessor. Finally, American remakes of Asian film have been wildly successful recently, with “The Departed” and “The Ring” both recent examples of successful remakes.

There will always be movies that are untouchable, and many believe remaking Paul Verhoeven’s sci-fi classic will be met with a poor reception. It’s drastic decisions like that, however, that move the industry forward, and as long as the movie is made for artistic reasons as well as financial, there will always be a chance of another hit.