‘Similar But Different’ (Part 1: Remakes)

Perhaps you are sick of me talking about how Hollywood approaches moves and TV with the business ethos of ‘similar but different,’ a subject I have explored here, here, here, and here among many other posts.

Hey, I am sympathetic to you. However since now more than ever Hollywood is relying on similar but different, I’m going to hammer on the subject for the next three days. More after the jump.

We start with this recent LAT article: “‘Footloose:’ The ‘80’s are dead. Long live the ‘80’s.” Despite the inauspicious B.O. performances of Footloose, Fright Night, Conan, The A-Team and Arthur, Hollywood keeps dipping into the 80s well:

Seasons, like paychecks and Republican presidential front-runners, come and go. But some things remain constant. Like ’80s remakes. And, specifically, their power to make us yawn.

[Last] weekend saw the moviegoing public shrug off two more retreads, a revival of a 1984 Kevin Bacon classic and a prequel of a 1982 John Carpenter cult hit. “Footloose,” that Bacon revival, pulled in $16.1 million — not a terrible number, but considering how heavily the movie was marketed, not exactly auspicious, either. Results for “The Thing” looked more grisly — the movie eked out only $8.7 million.

The films join a long list of ’80s reboots that have yielded lackluster results: “Fright Night,” “Conan,” “The A-Team,” “Arthur.”

So if 80s movie remakes may not be faring all that well at the box office, why does Hollywood keep going to that well? Safe to say the big reason is ‘similar but different.’ A remake is the perfect execution of that concept: It is the same movie, only done with a different cast and a revised script to reflect contemporary sensibilities and freshen up the story.

At the core of ‘similar but different’ is a belief: All stories have been told before. More from the LAT article:

In “Drive,” the well-reviewed art-house piece that has established a loyal fan base, Nicolas Winding Refn channels the spirit of “Miami Vice” and other pastel-colored entertainment. Throwback action movies such as “The Expendables’ and “Fast Five,” meanwhile, have turned into the biggest hits of the last couple of years. “Footloose” may have struggled, but its spiritual descendants, the “Step Up” films, has blossomed into one of the hottest teen franchises of the last few years.

And this summer J.J Abrams looked to the movies of the 1980s, like “Stand by Me” and “The Goonies,” in creating his coming-of-age adventure “Super 8.” The film went on to become a huge global hit.

There are good reasons we’re looking back to the movies of several decades ago: There were some storytelling values to that period, for one thing, and there are only have so many stories to tell.

Even a contemporary director such as Jason Reitman, one of the more original-minded filmmakers out there, said he felt the ghosts of decades past when he gets behind the camera. “In a strange way, I always feel like I’m doing a remake,” he told 24 Frames in an interview last week. “I mean, ‘Thank You for Smoking’ was ‘Jerry Maguire’ if Jerry sold cigarettes.”

So even if the B.O. results aren’t overwhelming, there is a default attitude deeply entrenched in Hollywood that will persist in remaking 80s movies… then over the next few years 90s movies… and so on.

That attitude? Similar but different.

You don’t have to like it. You do have to understand it.

[Another reason remakes are so popular, as manager-producer Gavin Polone notes here, is that movies are “the greatest hard asset they [studios] possess,” so a remake not only generates its own revenues through box office receipts and ancillary streams, it can also increase the value of the original film, a case of double-dipping.]

Tomorrow: Another LAT article and Part 2 of this mini-series.