2019 isn’t even halfway through yet and we’ve already seen numerous (and arguably unnecessary!) remakes, including What Men Want, Dumbo, Aladdin, The Upside, and Pet Sematary, with many more still to come. With that in mind, Casumo recently dug into our nostalgia-heavy culture to determine the least and most commercially successful movie remakes ever. “In recent years, as many as one in 20 of Hollywood’s highest-grossing movies have been revamped versions of an original,” the website reads. “While some remakes go on to be critically acclaimed Academy Award winners, others should have probably been left alone. We analyzed the ratings and profitability of remade movies vs their originals to find out which versions are more successful.”
The most successful? 1976’s A Star is Born, the one with Barbra Streisand and Kris Kristofferson, which earned a staggering $13.33 at the domestic box office for every $1 spent on the budget, followed by 2003’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre ($8.76), 1978’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers ($7.13), and 2018’s A Star is Born ($5.81), starring Bradley Cooper, Lady Gaga, and that butt song.
As for that least successful, that dubious honor belongs to 1993’s Body Snatchers, a remake of (what else?) The Body Snatchers, which made all of $428,868 on a $13 million budget; or $0.03 for every $1. That’s despite a Cannes Film Festival debut and relatively positive reviews, including a four-star praise from Roger Ebert. Next up is 2001’s Mean Machine (a remake of The Longest Yard), then Spike Lee’s Oldboy (yikes), 2007’s The Invasion (more body snatching!), and 2011’s Conan the Barbarian, with Jason Momoa instead of Arnold Schwarzenegger. In case you were wondering, Gus Van Sant’s experimental near-shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho is on the low-end of the spectrum, having made all of $37.1 million on a $60 million.
The moral of the story: maybe don’t bother with that Weird Science remake.
(Via Casumo)
