Old films, that are made into remakes can sometimes become a great success or sometimes can be a failure. I will cover some of the different production contexts and the effects on the films successes – do they ‘make it’ or ‘break it’?
One of the films we studied was The Ring (2002) and Ringu (1998),The Ring is an American remake of the Japanese film Ringu. There are many differences and similarities between there two films. There is some synergy between the films in terms of narrative, however there was an extremely large (~$48,000,000) budget for the American film. The Ringu film was made on a considerably lower budget (~$1,200,000) than the American one. The Ring was made 4 years after Ringu, and in these four years there was a slight advance in technology. The profit made from each different was completely different like the budget, I think that the profit reflects the budget. Ringu didn’t actually make much profit, however the American version did. For example the American remake had a profit of around $128 million, however Ringu only had a profit of around $1.7 million. The reason for not much money being made would be because of the distribution of the film. America was able to distribute the film across many countries: such as Argentina, Germany Finland, Greece, Netherlands, and more, where as Ringu only went abroad 3 years after it was released in Japan. But for America to make this success they needed Ringu to be made, because they wouldn’t of had any idea about the storyline of the film, but also without the original having success in Japan, the remake would not have made it in the counties that it did.
Vertical integration is where a specific company over-looks all the aspects of a film, and Ringu is an example of this. There was two main companies and both of these companies would have overlooked everything that happened, from the filming, sets and equipment and the original ring, would have been horizontal integration, which means there are lots of companies involved in making the film, for example some companies are listed for editing, special effects, and another for the equipment hire. The total amount of companies used in the original ring was thirty-nine however the America has a wider choice of companies they can use to assist them when creating a film that Japan had at the time.
The advantage of the American version of this film is the fact that they had an extremely larger budget. For example they had a lot more money to spend on effects, and SFX. Although the SFX in the newer film were extremely similar to the Japanese version, these effects would have been made by different companies and then come back to DreamWorks when the final version of the film was to be edited.
Each film is different in its own way, the original is slightly harder to follow because of the subtitles, the remake is extremely similar to the original in-fact in some parts of the film they have copied the same shots and camera angles, also the dialect is the same. The American version of the film, had different social situations and contexts, the psychological effect on the characters were shown more in the American version, because the story went into more depth, for example the whole story with the horses and how the ring came about was completely different to the Japanese version. American films have much more depth of explanation within the film, which reflects differences in social contexts, un-like the Japanese version which was more just based on the characters and how the characters are feeling, un-like the American films, they have a lot of explanation in there films, for example in The Ring (2002) she finds out a lot about the girl, and the film is more orientated around the girl, where as in Ringu, the film is just focused on saving her own life, and her sons life.
The remake of Psycho was made in 1998 and the original film was made in 1960, this version was made almost 40 years after and the film is exactly the same in every where, the shot types, and the settings. This film was made to make a remark to Alfred Hitchcock who directed the original, because he is seen to be an auteur. Some people think that the film should have been changed in some way instead of it being exactly the same to how Alfred Hitchcock made it. However personally I think that re-creating the original makes him seem better because obviously he must have been so good for them to not even have to change it in the slightest.
Alfred Hitchcock’s version of Psycho made a considerable more amount of money ($51 Million) than the remake ($38 Million), although Hitchcock’s version has had many years to make that money, the remake is no-where near. If they changed something within the remake this may have affected the amount of money that the new remake made.
Alfred Hitchcock was already popular when the Psycho remake was released, therefore he had already made his name, and he was already so well known in the American film industry, his film made so much money, and as for Ringu it made the most amount of money a film has ever made in Japan, if it wasn’t for this release then the American version wouldn’t have made the amount of money it did.
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