Remakes are a funny and fickle beast to take care of, because sometimes you don’t know what they might want to eat in their cages. Dispensing with the metaphor now, you can imagine the “zoo” (sorry!) of movies out there sometimes beg for a remake for several reasons. One of them is not out of popularity, though–
Take, for instance, the recent insurgence of cult horror remakes–such as “Halloween,” “A Nightmare on Elm Street,” and “Friday the 13th.” Now don’t misunderstand: Rob Zombie deserves all the respect a visionary expects; but did the classic “Halloween” really need a remake? The same goes for “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Friday the 13th”! Freddy Krueger was known for his comic antics laced with the classic 80s horror flair; why mess with it? The new “Friday the 13th” in all honesty was hardly a ‘remake,’ rather just another volume in the long line of Jason movies that followed an inherent time line.
No, if you really want to remake a movie, you need to consider one factor that does indeed matter. One, the high concept of the film while prevalent during its time has to have changed from then to now. Case in point: “The Karate Kid.” Now there’s a reason to remake a film! The first one with Ralph Macchio and Pat Morita featured a Jersey boy learning Karate from an older Okinawan man. The remake, however, flipped it completely around! You’ve got an African-American boy right smack in the middle of China learning Kung-Fu (not Karate) from none other than Jackie Chan! You have racial undertones, a different setting, and a more universal feel. That makes good work for a remake.
Filmmakers need to consider that when dealing with a remake. There has to be a twist there that’s relevant to the times. Only then can a remake succeed and pay homage to the original.