In Hollywood today there is a certain requirement that for some genres of film, an almost guaranteed profit is required before investors can be produced. While this isn't the case to a certain degree for films that chase the Oscars, in those genres such as science fiction as well as others, where investors can be wary it is often easier to point to an earlier work in order to demonstrate that the film's ideas can be translated to the big screen. You can see this in upcoming films such as the remake of Carrie or Robocop. Neither really was totally necessary but the holder of the rights saw the possibility of making some return on their investment. You also get this to a degree with film series as well where a reboot to the series gives the presumption that a further new film series that makes just as much money could be created. We've seen reboots to Star Trek and Spider-Man in recent years and work is underway on rebooting the Terminator and the Mad Max franchises. Hollywood has a long arm, and there are a lot of films currently in production somewhere which are redoing previous works. Although at least we won't have to see a remake of Annie starring Willow Smith after she dropped out of the production last April. I think the key point to make here is that as long as people pay money to see these remakes, Hollywood will keep producing them it's simply supply and demand. So, go see the good ones (because you can make things better I think The Amazing Spider-Man is really good) and avoid the bad. You can't really tell how good these films will be till they come out. I hated the idea of remaking Robocop, but right now I've been won over by the most recent trailer. That being said, there are a lot of films out there that Hollywood hasn't yet decided to remake which have potential. Here's a list of fifteen films that I think Hollywood could yet re-make in order to make some easy cash. Although that's not to say that I think that necessarily remaking them is actually a good thing!