15 Films You Didn't Realise Were Remakes
Some of the most famous films of all time have been told time and time again.
Because Hollywood has been churning out more remakes than ever in recent years, it seems like the movie industry has officially run out of ideas. How could a business worth hundreds of billions resort to uncreatively rehashing the same stories over and over? Why not try something different?
Here's the problem with this criticism: remakes have been around since 1902. In fact, some of the most celebrated movies including Dracula, Frankenstein, The Maltese Falcon, Some Like It Hot, The Ten Commandments, and The Wizard of Oz were all reboots.
Because recycling stories is often associated with laziness, some filmmakers have hidden the fact that their movies are remakes. You may not realise some of your favourite films are retellings because the original was made decades ago, had a different title, or was made in a different language.
Remakes may have a bad rep but a couple of them turn out well. Some of them aren't great. Some of them are better than the original. But there's one thing you can say about all of them; every entry on this list is not original.
15. True Lies
During the 1990s, Arnold Schwarzenegger met with James Cameron and asked him if he would be interested in working together on a remake of the 1991 spy comedy, La Totale! Cameron loved the idea and adapted it into the action-packed classic, True Lies.
Apart from putting a heavier focus on action, True Lies copies La Totale! verbatim. Both films centre around a man who, unbeknownst to his family, is a secret agent. While the lead character tries to stop a terrorist from smuggling missiles, he learns his wife has grown bored of her life. When a slimy car dealer tries to seduce her by pretending to be a spy, the husband "arrests" her and orders her to work for him to pay off her debt.
When phrased like that, it sounds like the two films are identical. However, the biggest difference between the two films is the original focuses on humour. Don't get me wrong. True Lies is hilarious but it's a blockbuster first and a comedy second.