As the movie business becomes ever-reliant on branding and familiar IP, remakes and reboots have become all the rage. Many remakes are inferior to the originals, unable to provide a satisfying reason for their existence beyond profit.
This isn't always the case though, and some reboots have earned praise even from those who made the original. Here are 5 directors who supported the remaking of their films, and 5 who opposed.
10 Supported: Joel Schumacher Praised The "Dark Knight" Trilogy
Joel Schumacher's Batman duology are dubiously credited with having briefly "killed the franchise," in Batman & Robin star George Clooney's words. When Christopher Nolan revived the Dark Knight on film, he took the exact opposite approach to Schumacher - dark, dramatic, and political. Schumacher, always a good sport, praised Nolan's finale, The Dark Knight Rises, for its ambition and political prescience:
“I think what’s very interesting about Batman and how brilliant Chris Nolan is, if you look at the last Batman, ours were at a much simpler time. Our job was to entertain the whole family... The last one is really about what we’re going through, the extraordinary gap between the haves and the have-nots… the last Batman is very reflective of the times we’re living in, which are scary times."
9 Opposed: George Romero Had Mixed Feelings On Zack Snyder's "Dawn Of The Dead"
George Romero is the father of the zombie apocalypse, having invented the genre wholesale with Night of the Living Dead. Zombie movies make up the bulk of Romero's filmography and one of the most famous is the 1978 Dawn of the Dead. Set in an abandoned mall, the film satirizes American consumerism.
In 2004, Zack Snyder made his directorial debut with a remake of Romero's film. The films share a title but diverge in many other places, including zombies themselves - Romero's slow-moving dullards; Snyder's ravenous pack-hunters. Romero had mixed feelings on Snyder's film: "It was better than I expected. I thought it was a good action film. The first 15, 20 minutes were terrific, but it sort of lost its reason for being."
8 Supported: Sam Raimi Produced Fede Álvarez's "Evil Dead" Remake
Sam Raimi made his mark on horror and cinema with The Evil Dead, spawning both a long directorial career and a media franchise. Aside from possibly Spider-Man, Evil Dead will always be the films which Raimi is most associated with. However, when the time came for a different director to try his hand, Raimi was supportive.
The remake, titled Evil Dead, was released in 2013. Directed by Fede Álvarez and starring Jane Levy, the pair did a commendable job stepping into the shoes of Raimi and Bruce Campbell. Raimi was a producer on the film and described Álvarez as a "great artist" and "brilliant." Raimi would later reunite with Àlvarez and Levy to produce 2018's Don't Breathe.
7 Opposed: Tomas Alfredson Wasn't A Fan Of "Let Me In"
A common practice in Hollywood is to take foreign films and produce "Americanized" remakes. Just one example is Let The Right One In. A 2008 Swedish film, directed by Tomas Alfredson and adapted from John Ajvide Lindqvist's 2004 novel, it focuses on a bullied boy who befriends a vampiric girl.
An American remake helmed by Matt Reeves and retitled Let Me In, was released a mere two years later. Reeves's version won praise from many, including Lindqvist - "To have not only one, but two excellent versions of my debut novel done for the screen feels unreal." Alfredson, however, was not one of the fans; in 2011, he said "I think that there’s something dishonest about copying someone’s work."
6 Supported: Don Siegel Cameoed In Philip Kaufman's "Invasion Of The Body Snatchers"
Invasion Of The Body Snatchers has been remade three times over because of how neatly the titular monsters fold themselves into allegory. The first remake came 22 years after Don Siegel's 1956 original. Siegel not only cameos in the remake along with original star Kevin McCarthy, but collaborated with director Philip Kaufman on the film's story, including the famous ending where Matthew (Donald Sutherland) lets out an alien screech, revealing he's been replaced. Siegel had wanted a similarly bleak ending for his own film but was overruled by the studio.
5 Opposed: Niels Arden Oplev Didn't Have Kind Words For David Fincher's "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo"
The late Stieg Larsson's Millennium novels were first adapted in his home country of Sweden. Director Niels Arden Oplev helmed an adaptation of the entire trilogy (The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo, The Girl Who Played With Fire, & The Girl Who Kicked The Hornet's Nest), with Noomi Rapace starring as Lisbeth Salander. Released successively in 2009, the films were a major success in their home country and it wasn't long before Sony planned for an Americanization.
Sony recruited David Fincher, fresh off The Social Network, to direct, and he in turn cast Rooney Mara as Lisbeth. Oplev wasn't a fan, viewing the remake as insulting to the work both himself and Rapace had put into the originals. He was quoted as saying “Even in Hollywood there seems to be a kind of anger about the remake... ‘Why would they remake something when they can just go see the original?’ Everybody who loves film will go see the original one." Oplev emerged the victor here, since the sequels to Fincher's version have been forestalled.
4 Supported: J. Lee Thompson Was Thrilled That Martin Scorsese Remade "Cape Fear"
John D. MacDonald's 1957 novel The Executioners has been adapted to film twice, though neither time under that name. In 1962, J. Lee Thompson adapted the novel as Cape Fear, starring Gregory Peck as righteous lawyer Sam Bowden whose family and life are threatened by a face from his past, Max Cady (Robert Mitchum).
In 1991, Martin Scorsese was fresh off the smash hit of Goodfellas and chose to remake Cape Fear. Scorsese's version starred Nick Nolte as Bowden and Robert De Niro as Cady, while also featuring cameos from Peck and Mitchum. In a documentary chronicling the making of the original, Thompson recounted his excitement at Scorsese directing the remake, describing him as "[his] favorite director" and praising one of Scorsese's earlier collaborations with De Niro, The King of Comedy.
3 Opposed: Kirk Wise & Gary Trousdale Weren't Fans Of Bill Condon's "Beauty And The Beast"
The 1991 Beauty and the Beast kicked off the Disney Renaissance and is one of the studio's best animated features. It was also one of the first casualties of Disney's recent trend of adapting their classics to live-action. Debuting in 2017, the remake was directed by Bill Condon and starred Emma Watson & Dan Stevens in the title roles.
The directors of the original, Kirk Wise and Gary Trousdale, weren't effusive. Wise was ambivalent, saying "On one hand, it's great to have been involved in movies that have had so much longevity and have created so much affection for them in the audience that they'd be excited to see a new adaptation of the movie. But also, it's like ... go watch the old one." Trousdale was blunter, stating "My completely objective and non-varnished opinion is that the animated ones are better anyway."
2 Supported: John Carpenter Collaborated With David Gordon Green On "Halloween"
"Soft reboot" is thrown around to describe films which are spiritual remakes yet maintain continuity with the classics. Halloween, the original slasher, had been remade in 2007 by Rob Zombie to muted reception. John Carpenter, director of the original, is famously laid-back, but even he wasn't a fan.
Carpenter's feelings for the 2018 Halloween, one of those "soft reboots," is much softer. Though David Gordon Green directed, it was Carpenter's approval of Green's vision which got the project made at all. That the 2018 film undoes Halloween II's retcon of Laurie (Jamie Lee Curtis) as Michael's sister (a twist Carpenter regrets) might explain his support.
1 Opposed: Park Chan-Wook Still Hasn't Seen Spike Lee's "Oldboy"
Oftentimes, it's not just those involved in the originals who pan Americanized remakes. One example would be the 2013 Oldboy, a remake of the widely-beloved original by Park Chan-Wook, one of South Korea's most beloved filmmakers. Directed by the usually excellent Spike Lee, the remake was derided critically and made a fraction of its budget back. Most would prefer to forget it, among them Park Chan-Wook, who reportedly still hasn't watched it.
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