Movie remakes get a bad wrap, and that's mostly because they're embarrassing train wrecks of human failure, and because insulting and calling them inferior makes us feel better. When you hear that a remake is going into production, the producers might as well be saying, "Hey, we know you've seen this, but we're going to repackage it for you and make you pay to watch it again... and you will pay to watch it again,
won't you?" Fact is, remakes are considered to be less of a financial risk on behalf of the studio folk who green-light them on such a frequent basis: they're tapping into a market that already exists in some form, after all - driven by curiosity alone, or a sense of misplaced nostalgia, audiences will flock to see how these things turn out. That they rarely turn out to be any good... well, what did you expect? It's a
remake, people. If it were at all possible, though, I think most movie-goers would willingly burn the Hollywood Remake Machine to the ground, in order to make room for a slew of original projects. But hold your horses, keen burner: sometimes a movie remake will slip under our noses with such restrained levels of discretion that we didn't even realise it was a remake at all. That doesn't necessarily mean it won't be terrible, of course... but what if it's actually
good?