Abundance In Movie Remakes
Ronald G. Buell III
Professor Casamassima
EMF 140
5/13/15
Final Paper: Abundance in Movie Remakes
Each year hundreds of movies are released to the public for viewing in theaters to generate billions of dollars in profit. It just seems that as of late these movies aren’t necessarily “new”. Movie companies such as Disney, Pixar, Universal Studios, Warner Bro’s Studio, Paramount, Spyglass entertainment, Lionsgate, Columbia and Screen Gems have started to find a quicker, safer and cheaper alternative to making movies. Instead of stressing to create huge budgets, write a script, find actors, producers, and directors studios have found it is much more profitable to just re-make old movies or make a sequel to a previously successful movie. This saves time, money and stress not having to completely re-write a script while being able to just use the same crew as the first movie. Making a re-make also allows for a pretty accurate projection of the profit their re-make will make because they have the same audience following as the previous first movie. One of the first examples I will be talking about is the Fast and Furious series. This series has a cult following and recently just released their 7th movie in the series called “Furious 7”. This movie shattered box office records with the 9th largest domestic opening of all time. This movie was also written with controversy due to the death of one of the lead actors Paul Walker. The death called for what viewers thought was “one last ride” and the end of the series so it brought tons of extra advertising and attention. The first week in theaters generated 147.2 million which was 50% higher than their anticipated ratings (Frater 2015). With the second and third weeks not falling to far behind making a total of $65 and $70 million, it was safe to say this movie was a hit. In fact it made movie history by becoming the first movie series to ever top $1 Billion globally in profits. This action packed series had
Professor Casamassima
EMF 140
5/13/15
Final Paper: Abundance in Movie Remakes
Each year hundreds of movies are released to the public for viewing in theaters to generate billions of dollars in profit. It just seems that as of late these movies aren’t necessarily “new”. Movie companies such as Disney, Pixar, Universal Studios, Warner Bro’s Studio, Paramount, Spyglass entertainment, Lionsgate, Columbia and Screen Gems have started to find a quicker, safer and cheaper alternative to making movies. Instead of stressing to create huge budgets, write a script, find actors, producers, and directors studios have found it is much more profitable to just re-make old movies or make a sequel to a previously successful movie. This saves time, money and stress not having to completely re-write a script while being able to just use the same crew as the first movie. Making a re-make also allows for a pretty accurate projection of the profit their re-make will make because they have the same audience following as the previous first movie. One of the first examples I will be talking about is the Fast and Furious series. This series has a cult following and recently just released their 7th movie in the series called “Furious 7”. This movie shattered box office records with the 9th largest domestic opening of all time. This movie was also written with controversy due to the death of one of the lead actors Paul Walker. The death called for what viewers thought was “one last ride” and the end of the series so it brought tons of extra advertising and attention. The first week in theaters generated 147.2 million which was 50% higher than their anticipated ratings (Frater 2015). With the second and third weeks not falling to far behind making a total of $65 and $70 million, it was safe to say this movie was a hit. In fact it made movie history by becoming the first movie series to ever top $1 Billion globally in profits. This action packed series had