Remake fail?

From Film School Rejects:

Using only the raw, quivering data, Conan and Straw Dogs were the only films to lose money. However, we all know that there’s more to the story than just these numbers; this is the polite version of the data. It doesn’t take into consideration the overhead for advertising and the like, or the revenue split between different producing partners. Because of that, Arthur, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark, Fright Night, and The Mechanic are all undoubtedly money-losers.

The only real winner is Footloose, and its victory is a well-deserved yet moderate one. In a pack of remakes, it alone came out victorious.

Here are the numbers:

Movie (Budget not including advertising) — Total Worldwide Gross

Source: Box Office Mojo

Arthur ($40m) — $45.7m

Conan the Barbarian ($90m) — $48.7

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark ($25m) — $31.5m

Footloose ($24m) — $62.5m

Fright Night ($30m) — $37m

The Mechanic ($40m) — $50m

Straw Dogs ($25m) — $10.3m

Does this mean the end of remakes? Hell no. In a town where job security = play it safe, we will always have remakes. And as the Coen brothers displayed with True Grit, that is not necessarily a bad thing. But let’s pay special attention to the performance of remakes this year as this could be the proverbial canary in the coal mine about moviegoers expressing their disdain for the overly familiar and wanting something new and different in the way of film entertainment.

For the rest of the Film School Rejects article, go here.

UPDATE: @jddobkin tweeted that the article didn’t include The Thing remake, but of course it’s a prequel. Maybe prequels have a strong remake whiff, yes? Worldwide B.O.: $27.4M, Production Budget: $38M. Numbers via BOM.

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