A Response To "Are There Original Ideas Anymore?"

I found the Blog, "Are There Original Ideas Anymore?" very interesting and it reminded me about a discussion we had in my Film and Literature class last semester. Our professor asked us why we thought so many films were adaptions of books or other previously written works. Now, I am aware that remakes of movies are different than book to film adaptions. However, there are several key reasons that they share for why they are done.

There is nothing new about remaking films- however, there is one good reason we are seeing more now. Film has only been around for so long, and the first wave of remakes started in the 1950's and 1960's. However, filmmakers and audiences alike have changed greatly with the exponential increase in technology. Filmmakers recognize terrific scripts in older films, but realize how they could harness current technology to make it look much "prettier" than the original.

As I said before, remakes of films and book to film adaptions both offer several things that are appealing to film companies and directors. First, there is much less work involved in the script-writing process; the product is there to be edited, and changed slightly, not done from scratch. Another reason is that people who saw the original will often be sucked into seeing the new version. With a fan-base already established, you are guaranteed to get a good-sized population of people to come out to see the new film. The final reason why films are done these ways is because ads and marketing for the previous thing (whether print, or original movie) have already worked their way into the minds of people. This means that the remake can piggy-back on the success, or failure of the previous work. One of the biggest battles for a film company is to get people to remember the name of a movie to go see it. Here, many people have already heard of it, and will remember it much easier. Good or bad, you decide.