No, bad mushroom, bad. You can't steal my thoughts and then not even mention Drop Dead Fred Remake in OP. That's not cooooooooooooooooool
It's freakin' DDF. The only thing people remember is "No panties!"
And Bright Lights, Big City, makes no sense. "This was a mild flop the first time - the SECOND time must be a fountain of riches!!!"
There's
a website for these things.
I clump in the adaption shit into the umbrella word "remake" as well. It's the same crap - taking something that already exists and then making an inferior version of it. Those you who are going to watch the Walking Dead AMC series but not read the dumb books: hate hate hate hate on all 30 feet of my circuits hate
Anyway, in general, the question of "why"?
Well, I think movies as an artform are dead. They're finished. Hear me out.
Here is an extremely nerdy analogy. In, say, Magic The Gathering, when they create a new card, it does one of two things. It's either stronger than the already existing alternatives and raises expectations, or it's not and is irrelevant.
This is an example of rising standards, and this idea is applicable to a lot of things. The cycle of a genre's rise and inevitable fall into the niche market amongst video games (don't think there will ever be a day when a call of nfl blitz game is as obscure as Dodonpachi? give it a few more decades), folks who want a bigger and better car / job / ladyfriend than their last one etc.
When I watched Terminator 2 for the first time as a lad, I thought to myself "wow - I wonder what awesome movies they will make later." And here we are sixty years later and - haha - not one movie has come out better than it in its genre. You remember that they had a helicopter fly UNDER an overpass in that movie right? Remember?!
Then consider: ~90 minutes is an extremely limited amount of time. That's ~two episodes of House M.D. In that time, well, can you really grow to
love some characters? No of course not. That kind of attachment only applies to the actor, not some character you see for a couple minutes. Actors just play themselves. But in a more serious medium, you can get attached to a group of (relative) unknowns, like the cast of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
And the time constraint also retards massively the content that is presented. What new is there really to say in a genre flick, in those few minutes? What could be a beautiful arc in a tv series, is crunched and mutilated like a bonsai kitty. (Douchebags like Manoj know how to do this da best.) Remember how the first Jurassic Park had a nice beginning, but quickly devolved into an endless (filler) action sequence? Or other movies with predictable, rote, beats?
Also spending half the budget on some actor. Does it really even fucking matter anymore? If you picked some slob off the street, hosed him down, then advertised all over the place about the new exciting "Johnny B. Rottencrotch" movie, would that really be much less effective than Robert DeNiro?
If that money went to other things, maybe they could make me that new time traveling killer robot flick that's actually good.
TV series, now, can have budgets of more than a million an episode, and look just as good and have as many location shoots as a movie. And they have the luxury of giving more product in return. And serials can have deeper, more meaningful arcs. And can be watched without having to leave your house or spend money.
So, in conclusion, the movie as an art form is dead. All they're good for is spectacle (like a Mortal Kombat gorefest), random quirky weirdness, or strange old Al Gore wanting more of my money to build his time machine to demand a total recount of Florida instead of a partial one so the supreme court wouldn't have a flimsy excuse to not make him The Guy.
...........
I don't know man I just feel like writing essays tonight......... remember "remakes" like that Fly remake with Jeff, which was like a totally different but good movie? I miss when they used to do stuff like that...
PSX Vita: Slightly more popular than Color TV-Game system. Almost as successful as the Wii U.