What are some pros & cons of taking successful films & either remaking, colorizing or re-releasing in 3D- name some example movies!
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NerdLush 
Resident Technerd checking in!
In some regards, I really do see these things you mentioned as method by the studio and theater chains to make more money in the initial box office. In a world where movies are streamed instantly to Netflix, or aired on cable, or downloaded from torrents, it’s amazing that people at all still go to the movie theater. The theaters need butts in the seats and what better way than to give us a movie experience that we can only get in the theater? (Three dimensions! Better fake IMAX screens! Now you get to pump your own butter on the popcorn! Etc) So all these things you mentioned with Remaking Things That Previously Worked, Colorizing What Should Not Be Colored, and Things That Already Made A Pantload of Money But Now It’s In 3D! are the studios and big movie theater chains hoping we’ll go to the movies.
However in the defense of 3D… the technology is really freakin’ sweet and it’s getting better every year. And I’m saying this as a gal who gets 3D movie headaches and generally avoids 3D films. We now have polarized lenses that flicker between eyes via battery operated goggles that remove the unnatural extra color (although the brightness of the picture is significantly decreased) and it’s a mostly clear picture (I say mostly because there is still some tracking lag on camera pans/fast movement.) And, if that wasn’t enough – now we don’t even need to film it in 3D! We just need to chain a team of people to a farm of computers for months at a time. In fact, the latter is beginning to be more common due to budgetary reasons as it’s cheaper to plan for a film to have a post conversion than to actually film it with 3D cameras.
Which brings me to….The rerelease anniversary super special 3D version of Titanic! Mr. Cameron has pretty much entirely re-invented the 3D process from start to finish. He, with his team of brilliant people, made new cameras, found new ways of shooting, and revamped the entire post process. Titanic, without doing any research whatsoever on this, is probably a show-and-tell of a new post-conversion process that his people created specifically for that film. That technology will later be used for other films that will create a new influx of even more 3D films. So really… I can’t get too angry at the re-release of that particular film.
But as for the re-boot of Spider-Man? Don’t get me started.
All very good points. I think I am personally sick to death of seeing an amazing film, a classic, be remade for no reason. Like the Footloose remake. WTF? Why mess with the perfection that is Kevin Bacon dancing in a barn? It’s like, why remake Casablanca or Gone With the Wind? Thankfully, I haven’t heard of either, but now I’ve said it on the internet… some studio head with steal the thought in two years from now they’ll be in 3D. I’m not adverse to making things with cooler technology and even being in 3D, though I tend to avoid 3D. I’m mostly- personally- against this recent trend of remakes. That doesn’t make me want to go to the theater. I will go to a movie theater to see something new. Not something old with a new coat of paint. That’s what DVD is for.
Unfortunately, for a lot of these remakes, we’re not the target audience. Since you mentioned Footloose, think of the first time you saw that movie. I’m assuming you were young. Now imagine a preteen/teenager today. If given the option of seeing a new movie with Zac Efron or a movie with Kevin Bacon, what will the teenager chose? Somewhere there was a studio exec or five that thought they were doing these teenagers a favor- since they probably won’t go see the original film, why not remake the classic awesome story so it appeals to them?
And really… Footloose did well financially:
“Footloose has grossed $51.1 million in the United States and Canada, and $10.9 million in other counties, for a worldwide total of $62 million.” [wikipedia]
It had a budget of about $24 million and that total doesn’t count the sale of DVDs, cable, or streaming. Of course, there are other factors too for something like Footloose. Studios know that any film will have a basic built in audience that will see the film regardless of what it actually is… in this case, people like us who grew up watching the classic will go and see it out of curiosity. That’s a pretty big pool of people, hence why we will probably continue to see awesome things from the 80s being reshot and destroyed. (Coming soon… Top Gun!) (Actually it’s being re-released in 3D, heh.)
Pre-teens and adolescents have no taste and should be shot to put me out of my misery. They made Twilight a hit… and it’s not good at all.