Is the initial impulse to make each of these movies a monetary one? Likely. Four films bear that title, the first in 1937, then 1954, 1976, and most recently in 2018. People revisiting stories occurs all throughout history for myriad reasons.
Remaking something does not solely satisfy the commercial instinct of the moviemaking business. RELATED: Chris Columbus Isn't in Favor of 'Harry Potter' Reboots or Remakes: "What's the Point?" And, there are films from that era seen as bonafide classics now that are remakes, such as John Huston's The Maltese Falcon, Howard Hawks' His Girl Friday, and Victor Fleming's The Wizard of Oz(in the case of Oz, there had been several before the 1939 Technicolor musical starring Judy Garland we all grew up watching). Revisiting recognizable, beloved material time and again were wonderful ways to make that money, whether that be in franchising or in remakes. Selznick were not interested in squeezing out every dollar they possibly could from the American public? No, these studio heads liked seeing their bank accounts increase just as studio heads do now. We have a tendancy to romanticize about the past, longing for a time when movies had no profit motive and were made simply for art's sake. The practice of Hollywood remaking films is as old as Hollywood itself. Not only does it do absolutely nothing to slow down the amount of remakes, but also, like the vast majority of online anger, most people complaining seem to be coming from a place that believes this is somehow a new phenomenon in the filmmaking landscape. Simultaneously, the outrage has grown incredibly tiresome. The predictable outrage is admittedly understandable, as so many film lovers want an ever-expanding Hollywood to take bold risks with never-been-told stories. Remember when they remade that? Weird." Then a new remake gets announced, and all the steps get repeated without fail. Eventually, the film comes out, and nine times out of 10, we move on with our lives, continuing to enjoy the original film, thinking every couple of years, "Oh, yeah.
A major Hollywood studio announces plans to remake a beloved classic or international film, and then your Twitter timeline is filled with an extreme amount of grousing and raging from movie lovers, claiming Hollywood creative bankruptcy and that the remake will defile the original.
It is an Internet outrage cycle we have seen too many times to count.