WEEKEND | 07.12.2019 | EXPRESS | 21
movies
Running the well dry? Audiences and critics are showing frequent disdain for remakes of classic movies “Dumbo”
1941
2019
“Aladdin”
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2019
“The Lion King”
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2019
for more than 100 remakes. They took those scores, then compared them to the same measure for the original. The researchers did the same for Metacritic scores, which indicate how reviewers felt about a movie. One of the biggest dips between the remake and the original was for “Dumbo,” Disney’s 2019 remake of the animated
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DISNEY
FILM Studio executives have grown more than a little remake-happy in recent years. In 2019 alone, remakes of films including “Shaft,” “Dumbo,” “The Upside” and “Aladdin” have all arrived in theaters, with a new take on “The Lion King” set to arrive next week. The executives’ logic has been simple: In a world of content overload, consumers turn out for the familiarity of a remake. While critics don’t tend to be terribly fond of these new takes, consumers supposedly like them. And studios are in the business of giving consumers what they want. One-third of Disney’s 2019 releases are devoted to remakes of animated features. And many more remakes are in the development pipeline, from “Clue” (Disney’s Fox unit) to “Clueless” (Paramount). But a new study suggests audiences don’t really like remakes either. Or, at least, an overwhelming number of people prefer the original. The study quantifies an aspect of Hollywood — remake sentiment — that is often talked about only in nebulous terms. “We may be hitting a peak with remakes. And I suspect we may [soon] hit a decline,” says Bruce Nash, a box-office expert with the site The Numbers. Spearheaded by researcher James Barnes of the company Verve Search and backed by online betting site Casumo, the survey found that audiences compared the remake unfavorably to the original more than 90 percent of the time. That’s more often than even critics, who are famously remake-averse. To conduct the study, researchers looked at the percentage of positive assessments from audience members on the site IMDb
classic. The new version received just a 51 Metacritic score, compared to 96 for the 1941 original. Average audiences liked it less, too: 66 percent positive from IMDb for the remake versus 73 percent for the original. The recent Will Smith version of “Aladdin,” a Disney live-action remake of the 1992 animated feature, similarly lost ground
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when compared to the original. Overall, horror remakes were some of the biggest losers — the remakes of “The House on Sorority Row” and “Cabin Fever” each dropped more than 40 points with critics. Not all films lost shine in their new versions. The 2018 remake of “A Star Is Born” ticked up from 76 to 79 among audiences and 77 to 88 with critics compared to the first version, in 1937. But it was far and away the exception. The data may be the result of a kind of confirmation bias. The nature of nostalgia is such that viewers can’t help thinking an original film was better, but that doesn’t mean they won’t pay to see the new one. Indeed, “Dumbo” was a modest performer, taking in $115 million domestically and an additional $237 million worldwide, a relatively small number for an enterprise that large. But “Aladdin” has been a bona fide smash — the highest-grossing non-Marvel movie in the U.S. this year and a $900 million-plus grosser worldwide. The 2017 remake of “Beauty and the Beast,” which dropped 30 points among critics and eight points with audiences, still took in $1.26 billion around the world. Nash notes that such remakes worked a little extra magic because they appealed to parents who care less about originality than introducing their kids to versions of childhood favorites. But these films can eventually run their course too. “I think Disney needs to be careful coming off ‘Dumbo’ and ‘Aladdin’ and ‘Lion King’ and now the trailer for ‘Mulan,’ ” he says. “It can seem like overkill to audiences.” STEVEN ZEITCHIK (THE WASHINGTON POST)
DOCUMENTARIES
How TV will observe the moon landing The 1969 moon landing was an improbable television event, as the images from more than 200,000 miles away mesmerized viewers — a feat TV hopes to replicate as we approach the feat’s 50th anniversary July 20. LYNN ELBER (AP) ‘8 Days: To the Moon and Back’ 9 p.m. Wednesday on PBS
Co-produced by PBS and BBC Studios, the new film tracks the mission from countdown to splashdown with a combination of recently declassified audio, interviews with the Apollo 11 crew, mission re-enactments, TV news footage and photographs.
‘Apollo 11’ 9 p.m. July 20 on CNN
The documentary film from director Todd Douglas Miller recounts the mission using newly discovered 70mm footage, extensive audio recordings and other digitized and restored material from the National Archives and NASA.
‘Confessions From Space: Apollo’ 10 p.m. July 20 on Discovery
This program gathers six astronauts who took part in Apollo program missions to jointly share their memories and insights. Among them are Apollo 11’s Michael Collins and Buzz Aldrin.
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