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Originally Posted by ASUADPi
So I was reading in Entertainment Weekly on Sunday that some studio is doing another remake of Romeo & Juliet and I got to thinking "why?" It's not like the story changes. 2 teenagers fall in love, their families hate each other, they marry, they die (via suicide), the end. The story isn't going to change, so why are you remaking it?
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By that theory, though, why should any theater ever do a new production of Romeo and Juliet? Presumably, they're remaking it because they think that can tell the story in a way that will appeal to comtemporary audiences. And they think it will make money.
Besides, they don't have to pay Shakespeare anything for the script.
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I've noticed that studios are into "remaking" movies nowadays.
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Studios have always been into remaking; it's nothing new. Sometimes they're remaking old movies, sometimes they're remaking foreign movies, sometimes they're adapting plays or stage musicals to screen. I can think of at about 10 film versions of
The Three Musketeers, at that's just the English versions. And I love both versions of
The Scarlet Pimpernel; each has its own plusses.
I think there may be a better argument about not remaking a film when the film in question isn't itself derived from another source, like a play or book.
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Originally Posted by AlphaFrog
I'm a fan of repackaging rather than remakes. For instance, Cars and Here on Earth were both a repackaging of a 1950's movie (name escapes me), but were different enough that they had their own merit. Same idea with 10 Things I Hate About You being a repack of The Taming of the Shrew.
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Romeo and Juliet --> West Side Story?
