Remakes And Reboots Over Originals
BY BRIAN MARTIN
Staff Writer
In this day and age of film making, studios are coming out with remakes and reboots of famous franchises to entice audiences to head to the big screen.
But critics are questioning if they are becoming too familiar.
“There’s too many sequels and reboots,” said Denise Belafonte, professor.
With the amount of remakes and reboots released over the last few years, audiences have to understand how the process functions. A studio takes a familiar or less familiar film and hopes to reignite that franchise with new or old material.
“People enjoy things from the past and they’re so good that people want to watch them in the future,” said Jake Golden, freshman.
Remaking or rebooting franchises can help new fans get into the world of that films universe while isolating fans of the original brand. Sometimes the refreshed franchise changes details from the old continuity to introduce some originality but still keeps some of the old details to respect the original.
This year’s Godzilla reboot took a fresh spin on the King of Monsters while still keeping true to what makes the character iconic such as Godzilla’s design being reminiscent of his original look from the original film.
Other times the rehashed material can deviate dramatically from the original.
This year’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles reboot saw backlash over several aspects such as the casting of Megan Fox as April O’Neil and how the appearances of the turtles looked. Some of the mythology was also changed to help the film focus on how April is connected to the turtles by showing that her father helped create them.
Another example from this year is the Robocop remake. The film was criticized for the absence of things such as the violence presented in the original.
Studios can also rehash existing material if a franchise falters.
Spiderman 3 derailed director Sam Raimi’s film series and plans for a fourth installment fell apart. To compensate, Sony was forced to reboot it into the current The Amazing Spiderman film series because if they fail with their film rights to the franchise they go back to Marvel.
This move by the company proved to be the right approach and they are already expanding the film universe with the Sinister Six and Venom coming out in the near future.
But reboots or remakes do not always garner the results studios were hoping for.
In 2001, 20th Century Fox released a remake of Planet of the Apes starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by Tim Burton. Despite being a financial success, the film was heavily criticized and the studio was forced to reboot the franchise similarly to how Sony rebooted their Spiderman franchise.
“It’s not the issue if they can diverge but rather if they can make a divergence more successful than the original,” said Victor Laznik, junior.
Remakes and reboots can also happen if studios are having a hard time coming up with something new and then decide that they should turn to old concepts. With the amount of original concepts unveiled over the years, it can be difficult to come up with something that is completely different from other concepts.
However, a franchise undergoing a reboot could lose its steam when it is reworked to meet the demands of today’s audience. While it is clear that studios are still working hard to come up with new brands, it can sometimes result in relying too heavily on old franchises.
