10 Movies Only Directed As Experiments

10. A Shot-For-Shot Remake Of A Classic Movie - Psycho (1998)

The Experiment

Fresh off the Oscar-winning success of Good Will Hunting, indie darling Gus Van Sant wasn't much interested in any of the projects being offered his way, and instead suggested remaking Alfred Hitchcock's 1960 horror classic Psycho, this time filmed in colour with a contemporary late-90s setting and, er, Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates.

Van Sant's motivation was to see if he could take a classic, successful movie, remake it for a modern audience and net equal or superior box office returns to the original.

How Did It Turn Out?

Not well. Though Van Sant received some scattered praise for the sheer audacity of making a near-shot-for-shot remake of Hitch's masterpiece, Psycho 1998 was largely panned by critics and audiences alike, while winning Razzie awards for Worst Remake or Sequel and Worst Director.

The primary goal of Van Sant's experiment, to try and repeat the original's stonking box office success, was also an abject failure. Incredulously budgeted at $60 million (compared to the original's $800,000), the film couldn't even crack $40 million worldwide.

Today, the remake lives on as a curio for fans, to observe how a different cast colours the material differently, and how endemic the original black-and-white cinematography is to the identity of the movie.

As for Van Sant's perspective? He said, "So it didn’t work. But the idea was whether or not you could remake something and it would repeat the box office. That was the sort of weird science experiment…It’s more alive now than it was back when it failed, just with the art world or the modern world."