ABSTRACT
Chapter 5: The Creative Remake examines the artistic and innovative motivations propelling filmmakers to revisit a title. So often remakes are accused of exemplifying Hollywood’s terminal lack of ideas whereby past properties are remade and international ideas stolen to compensate for the industry’s paucity of creativity: this chapter provides the counter case, contending that remakes can actually be creative, even when their stories aren’t totally “new”. This discussion includes an investigation of autoremakes – where directors remake their own content – as well as the content of other filmmakers, in an attempt to put their own unique stamp on an already-filmed story. Remakes considered as “better” are examined to identify factors that help a reproduction not only succeed at the box office but also be construed as a creative reworking. Such creativity can involve remaking bad films or expanding on an existing property with deeper characterization and a reimagined setting. Remakes also become creative through more wholesale changes. This can involve swapping the genre – turning a thriller, for example, into a musical – or by appealing to an entirely new audience, perhaps re-adapting a piece of classic literature as an animated children’s film. Also explored – and problematized – is the assumed good of creativity and the idea of originality as fetishized.
