Hollywood’s 21st Century Solutions…Thumbs Up or Thumbs Down? – Pt. 1

Hollywood has been having a not-so-great 21^st Century push in terms of films.  Sure, record-breaking films such as The Dark Knight and a successful brew of comic book genre fare along with breakout hits every now and then are still readily available.  Yes, there are still viable pools of talent that creates great products such as directors Joel and Ethan Coen and writer/director Charlie Kaufman.  However, with news like this, noting one of the weakest box office weekends in seven years alongside a steady decline in ticket sales in America, what is Hollywood doing to bring people out to the movies?  Pushing aside economics like ridiculous ticket prices, Hollywood has brought up (and is continuing to ramp up) production in two key areas: Asian film remakes and reboots.  Although there are exceptions, these two recent film methods are being too relied upon and abused.

The Asian film remake craze is not a relatively new idea but an evolution of sorts.  A small niche market has always been present in the US that has adored the Asian market from the Hong Kong kung fu action flicks (for instance, Bruce Lee films) to the quieter international releases (such as Hero).  However, Hollywood understands that these films are not constant moneymakers.

The majority of modern US filmgoers are not keen to watch these films due to being turned off by subtitles or a poor dub (voice-overs).  Take a look at recent US-released international films: one of the best releases monetarily was Ang Lee’s Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon at $61 million dollars (in terms of domestic box office) compared with say, House of Flying Daggers which made only $11 million total.  However, that is only focusing on the action films.  Dramas such as Infernal Affairs only domestically made $169,000.

Another reason is that the Western market is, obviously, skewed towards its own films.  Although the international market is growing, Western films usually dominate in both other nations and the US.  As an audience, Americans are not keen on watching international movies save for the avid moviegoer or the curious.  On top of this is weak marketing for these films and the fact that theater owners usually shove these films to the corner if choosing to show them at all.  There is an argument to be made that the audience is dominant in DVD and digital mediums, yet the big picture point is that Hollywood studios do not care to push these films out in the current US market.

On the other side, the Asian film market, in its own territories, has begun to grow and mature into their own such.  Historically, the Asian film market has fluctuated wildly with the mid-20^th century seeing a surge of successful Chinese and Japanese films and then seeming insignificant near the late 90s.  Recently, though, the market has come back into its own from Korea’s recent artistic film boom to China’s interest again in triad and drama pieces.  Specific examples to be noted are Korea’s Shiri (toppling Titanic‘s record in Korea) to the $4 million success story of Infernal Affairs III; just a few examples of this strong resurgence.

American studios quickly pounced at the rights of these films.  Hollywood knew that it had a potential gold mine of film ideas and scripts already mostly laid out to work with.  So began the Hollywood remake phase of Asian films that still goes on today.  There are numerous examples to mention and touch upon.  The biggest one to get recognition in the past decade is probably the popular horror flick, The Ring, which released in 2002 and is a remake from Japan’s 1998 horror flick.  It was a considerable success, raking in $250 million by the end of its run and warranted a sequel.  Critically, though, it was deemed mediocre, stating that although the film was spooky, it was not as intense as the original Japanese release.

Another remake came with The Lake House, which released in 2006 and was a remake of Il Mare (released in 2000) from Korea.  This romantic drama paired Keanau Reeves and Sandra Bullock that plays upon time and romance.  It was panned by critics and grossed $52 domestically.  The original did not do extremely well in the box office either but still succeeded in garnering a better grouping of reviews and a loyal following.

One final example is The Departed, Martin Scorsese’s interpretation of China’s big hit, Infernal Affairs.  It was a huge success in America garnering rave reviews, four Oscars, and nearly $132 million.  On the flip side, however, those that actually watched Infernal Affairs would note that The Departed is not much of a re-imagining than a near carbon copy match of the Chinese original.

So what’s wrong here?  Hollywood is garnering success, viewers, and at times, critical acclaim with little expense and great return.  The problem is that:

1) Most of these remakes are made with little respect to the original source material.  Other than a note in the credits or perhaps a small tagline telling viewers that the idea was taken from another movie, most marketing/production teams ignore any such recognition.  It’s not plagiarism since the studios bought the rights and scripts from the original owners but a majority of audiences will never know of the source material.  Ask someone that saw The Lake House or The Departed and see who knows where and what the original movie was.  Most would be surprised to hear it wasn’t the brilliant (or not so brilliant work) of someone in the Western world.

2) It shows a lack of faith in filmmakers here in the United States.  There are a lot of Western movies still being made (penned and filmed) but originality is not considered fresh from this pool.  Instead, it is relegated usually to the indie market, which may be great for the avid movie watcher, but mainstream viewers will p*ss it by with little notice.

3) Finally, most of these remakes are sloppily done.  This point ties into the first one but is more in regard to the rate and the p*ssion put into these.  Gems such as The Departed are fairly well-made and respected but films such as The Lake House and the upcoming horror film Two Sisters show that a lot more thought and effort need to go into many of these works.

Hollywood is not done remaking these films as many more are already in production or are ready to release such as My S*ssy Girl, The Eye, A Tale of Two Sisters, and many more.  This business model is not terrible in any sense as it can churn out some great original content that the Asian market is completely buying into.  However, a lack of respect and public acknowledgement along with a lack of effort/heart makes those ‘in the know’ shake their head in disappointment.

Next up: Hollywood’s new favorite word – Let’s do ‘the reboot’…

Sources: Boxofficemojo/Wikipedia/Rottentomatoes/Yahoo! Answers