What is the point of a remake? Has there ever been a good one? If a film is good then why try to even match it? Anyone brought up in the 1980s who loved the original Total Recall cant possibly hope to have the same experience watching the latest Colin Farrell film. The genuine truth is that most stories have been told and Hollywood has gotten very lazy in searching for new ideas. Why try to create a new character, situation and story when you can just reboot an existing franchise with an audience at least interested in your project to start with? Theres nothing wrong with referring back to a film, the imagery and themes of Battleship Potemkin and Bicycle Thieves are still referenced in numerous films today. Remakes have to be well done, necessary and above all improve on the original, and this final point is of course why any talk of remakes for the following 10 films should never get off the ground.
10. The Long Good Friday
The gangster film that Scorsese could never hope to beat so he didnt try. Hollywood loves to borrow from non-American cinema but it doesnt necessarily make for box office success. The remake of Get Carter (another seminal British film of the era) suffered, not least because Stallone lacked the charisma of Caine in the title role. Likewise, its hard to imagine anyone personifying an East End gang lord with the same menace and authority of Bob Hoskins breakthrough performance. Ray Winstone is making a pretty good career out of that sort of role these days but you dont muscle in on Harold Shands manor, thats out of order!