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Night of the Horror Remakes
Hollywood's obsession with remaking horror classics goes into overdrive
Illustration by Sophie Kern
“We love Leatherface and we love Jason
, but our love for those guys is almost not as strong as our love for Freddy,” declares producer Brad Fuller from his office at Michael Bay’s Platinum Dunes production company. Fuller and his partner, Andrew Form, currently enjoy a first-look deal with Rogue Pictures and a well-earned reputation as Hollywood’s reigning “Remake Kings.” Together, they’ve presided over re-launches of some of the most enduring horror franchises of the last 30 years, including The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, The Amityville Horror, the forthcoming Friday the 13th and (if everything goes according to plan) the child-murderer-turned-dream-stalker saga that spawned seven sequels, A Nightmare on Elm Street. “It would be a dream to be on set making that movie,” says Fuller. “Conceptually, you have one of the top three greatest concepts ever for a horror movie: If you fall asleep, you die.”
The Elm Street franchise, which netted New Line Cinema $500 million during its initial run and earned the studio the moniker “the house that Freddy built,” has been inching toward a reboot since 2003’s monster face-off Freddy vs. Jason earned $82 million domestically. But things took a left turn in February when New Line was reabsorbed into Warner Bros. just as Platinum was beginning to throw its weight behind bringing Freddy back to multiplexes. “There’s no deal yet,” Fuller says. “It’s a function of the studio not knowing how they want to go forward on the movie.” New Line has remained silent since July, when screenwriter Wesley Strick was tapped to draft an Elm Street script, the progress of which is unknown. “They haven’t let us talk to Wesley at all,” Fuller says, allowing that ultimately the studio may not deign to hire Platinum onto the presumably effects-heavy movie for budgetary reasons. “We’re not cheap,” he admits. “There are lots of production companies out there that cost less than we do, but I can guarantee you that no one is more passionate about the project.”
In 2009, the horror remake game will be Hollywood’s favorite preoccupation, with more than 40 titles slated for release or in active development. The list includes remakes of chaste Universal monster classics like The Wolf Man and family-friendly fare like Poltergeist, reworkings of B-level franchises such as Child’s Play and Clive Barker’s flesh feast Hellraiser (appropriately stuck in development hell at the moment), Americanizations of Italian thrillers such as Suspiria (with Natalie Portman in talks to star), updatings of dreck like the daddy-issues slasher flick The Stepfather and shlock-exotica such as It’s Alive. Every property is a potential remake, especially those with recognizable titles and villains, easy-to-replicate storylines and aging stars of the original who are willing to ride the publicity bandwagon, all of which adds up to cheaper marketing costs and a higher probability of return on investment.
From his place at the top of this pyramid, Fuller practices careful selection. “There are plenty of remakes we’ve passed on,” he notes. “There are things we look specifically for and that limits the titles to a tiny number. I think at one point we were looking at Prom Night and there’s not an iconic image from Prom Night that you see and think ‘Prom Night!’ But our teaser poster for Friday the 13th? That’s all you need… Jason, Freddy, even the Amityville house—[these are] iconic things that audiences recognize.”
How do makers of the original movies—the ones who created the iconic things in the first place—fit into this new Hollywood calculus? For a director like Wes Craven, who has ridden successive waves of popularity over the decades, past success affords him a comfortable position at a production shingle where he oversees remakes of his own earlier movies by hand-picked directors while focusing on his own work. In 2006, the precursor to Craven’s Midnight Entertainment drew praise for selecting Alexandre Aja, a 28-year-old upstart, to remake The Hills Have Eyes—a gamble that paid off with a warm reception from horror fans. “One of the biggest challenges is finding ways to make the remakes exciting for us as well as the audience,” says Midnight Entertainment producer Cody Zwieg. “Finding a director with a true vision for each film is essential. We went through an extensive search before we met with Aja. With The Last House on the Left, we wanted to find a director who could handle the extreme tension and overall brutality of the original, but had the sensitivity needed to make each character come to life. I met with a lot of talented genre directors, but I had seen a film called Hardcore, directed by Dennis Iliadis, that blew me away.”
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COMMENTS | POST A COMMENT 
- Comment by denver criminal lawyers on 6/03/09 at 4:11 pm
Making horror movies is a whole different ball game. First of all you have to create something that exists only in imagination and secondly, the fantasy should be able to frighten even the toughest of movie viewers. Brad Fuller and Andrew Form are experts at this when they work as a team, especially, when it comes to re-creating classics to add that extra favor of horror.
- Comment by negotiate your salary on 6/30/09 at 8:40 am
I actually liked the prom night story quite a bit. Although there are some great outfits in the other movies as well.
- Comment by drug rehab centers on 10/04/09 at 2:34 pm
Very nice post. i don’t really like horror but if i ever do i will see some of these movies.
- Comment by How to lose weight fast on 10/17/09 at 6:07 am
Thanks for taking the time to post such a detailed and informative article. It has given me a lot of inspiration and I look forward to more like this in the future..
How to lose weight fast- Comment by برودكاست on 12/15/10 at 2:21 pm
- Comment by برودكاست on 12/15/10 at 2:21 pm
- Comment by budapestevideos on 2/25/11 at 12:08 pm
The best horror-thiller is the Saw-series.
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This story was published in the Fall 2008 MovieMaker Magazine. The headline was:
Night of the Horror Remakes / Hollywood's obsession with remaking horror classics goes into overdrive
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