I always hear people say “Hollywood is out of ideas”, well apparently they’ve been out of ideas longer than you think. As it turns out, a lot of the movies I grew up on thinking they were original were actually remakes. However this isn’t really a negative thing as these remakes introduced me, and others of my generation I’m sure, to ideas and stories I previously would not have been privy or at least had easy access to. Here’s 20 movies, some more obvious than others, you may not have known were remakes.
The Departed
‘Departed’ is based on the 2002 Hong Kong thriller ‘Infernal Affairs’ about a police officer who goes deep undercover into the “Triad society” while a Triad member simultaenously rises through the ranks of the police department. ‘The Departed’ has almost the exact same storyline as ‘Affairs’ except for the added bonus of an unnecessary love triangle.
You’ve Got Mail
Jimmy Stewart starred in the original 1940 movie, ‘The Shop Around the Corner’, about two gift shop employees who can’t stand each other but are actually falling in love through anonymous mail postings. The movie, which was based on a play (Illatszertar), was remade into a musical in 1949 starring Judy Garland before it was electronically upgraded in 1998 with Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan.
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I’ve heard the term ‘remake’ for as long as I have been watching movies. It usually comes out in discussions as “did you hear they’re remaking [old movie]?”, followed by a groan of discontent by those listening. One would think that with all the complaining and generally negative criticisms people give to remakes that movie studios would get the hint and stop making them. However, remakes and reboots aren’t always terrible and often times breathe life into dead stories and franchises, as we saw this May with ‘Star Trek’. Rarely do I hear people say a movie is being ‘reimagined’ usually it gets tossed in under the ‘remake’ category and it wasn’t until this past year that the term ‘reboot’ became the pop word for dead franchises. So what exactly is the difference between the three terms?