Too Much of the Same Thing: Remake or Repetition?

The anticipation of Spider-Man: No Way Home, set to release in theaters December 17, 2021 has been so astronomical that theater websites crashed at midnight on November 29th as everyone flooded the sites to buy tickets. With tickets for opening weekend sold out everywhere it seems like Spiderman: No Way Home should be the first of its kind - an original, never-seen-before franchise. But as we all may know, this is the third time Spider-Man has been remade. There have been many heated debates over which era has portrayed the “best” Spider-Man from Tobey Mcguire, Andrew Garfield, and the current ongoing series starring Tom Holland. And while there is much to be dissected over who is the best Peter Parker, this raises another question of why are there so many remakes in the first place? Looking past this particular superhero, remakes seem to be emerging left and right in both film and television from live-action remakes to retellings of classics. On top of that, some aren’t even retellings, but a sequel or spin-off of the original that bears a similar structure that is familiar enough to the viewers to feel reminiscent, but with a contemporary uniqueness -or at least that’s the goal. While some of these remakes can feel exciting or fresh, more often than not they feel like unwarranted imposters on beloved originals and often result in a major bust.

So when did remakes start becoming a regular occurrence? It’s difficult to pinpoint an exact time and project that sparked the beginning of remakes, but they are not as modern as we may think. While it may be baffling to think of the sheer amount of remakes over the centuries, the real head scratcher is why there are certain moments in time when the amount of remakes being produced spikes. Notably, remakes occur most frequently during times of economic turbulence, most recently the COVID pandemic. This indicates that remakes really are seen by production companies as a safety cushion to fall back on during times of recessions when there is too high of a risk to invest millions of dollars into new ideas that could potentially fail. Looking at just 2021 alone, there have been remakes for Cruella, He's All That, Guilty and The Many Saints of Newark, to name a few, with, Dune, West Side Story, Home Alone and a Grease spin-off all on the way. Meanwhile in TV, And Just Like That, Gossip Girl, Will & Grace, The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, Oliver Twist and How I Met Your Mother, as detailed by Cosmopolitan. And while certain remakes like Dune are received fairly well for its overall improved visuals and directing, other remakes like He’s All That, a retelling of the 2006 rom-com She’s All That are nitpicked to pieces, and not without good reason. Flops like He’s All That are a perfect example of stories that perhaps should be left as they originally were because the remake, in truth, adds nothing new or improved to the original. So why remake or reboot a project without making any significant changes to the story? This adds on to the ongoing tiredness from viewers that remakes should be stopped. For so many classics, there is an attachment and nostalgia factor that just cannot be replicated by modern retellings. So are remakes really just a cheap marketing ploy by production companies to make profit off of stories they know viewers already love and are familiar with? Even if a remake is criticized by audiences, companies can still make a significant profit just from people’s curiosity and attachment to characters, which one can argue is simply a good marketing strategy and not because Hollywood is running out of ideas. 

So where does this ongoing clonage of Spider-Man’s sit within the debate of remakes? While the Spider-Man franchise has been around since the 1970s, to many, the most notable of the Spider-Man films can be marked by the 2002 release of Spider-Man starring Tobey Mcguire. This is the first of a trilogy series produced by Raimi Films that ended in 2007 due to Sam Raimi’s discontent with the scripts he read for the scheduled Spider-Man 4. Shortly after in 2012, The Amazing Spider-Man was released, starring Andrew Garfield. The film was received poorly by audiences and critics with a span of critiques to say the least. A couple of note are the director’s decision to retell Spider-Man’s origin story word for word despite just having gone through the exact beginnings in Spider-Man (2002) and Peter Parker’s out-of-character “too cool for school” personality. Not shockingly, The Amazing Spider-Man was only able to produce one sequel in 2014 before being canceled. Most recently, Spider-Man became part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), starring Tom Holland as Peter Parker and released the first of its films in 2017, Spider-Man: Homecoming. It currently has a sequel out, Spider-Man: Far From Home (2019) along with the highly anticipated release of Spider-Man: No Way Home.

This recycling of such an iconic hero can be seen as just that, an iconic character that can never die. But in truth, Spider-Man has been kept relevant for so long because of the monetary value it presents to companies, in this case Sony. Created by Marvel Comics in 1962, Spider-Man has generated a very wide and loyal fan base with a plethora of projects from the original comics, animated series, video games, and films. Despite the criticism and disappointing box office results the previous Spider-Man films have received, Spider-Man was able to be rebooted a third time because of the safety net it provided, being an entity that has been around for so long. This brings us to the most current Spider-Man series, which roughly follows the original storyline of the original comics and has so far been extremely successful compared to the first two attempts at a Spider-Man series due to its different approach. Unlike Mcguire and Garfields’ Spider-Man films, which were meant to be isolated away from the MCU, Holland’s Spider-Man connects to the MCU, along with creating a “Spider-Man Cinematic Universe”, which has already been kick-started off with Venom (2018) starring Tom Hardy. 

So what does the anomaly of seven (soon to be eight) Spider-Man films produced in just two decades tell us? That remakes are truly a tricky business. Audiences want something new, but not out of character (as seen by the criticisms of Garfield’s portrayal of Peter Parker). And with such an iconic character, even Holland’s well-received Peter Parker should remain cautious to not lose the nostalgic feel of a teenage boy navigating the ropes of being a superhero that the comics portray. When done right, these remakes can actually allow filmmakers more creativity and vision, while also being a secure financial investment, a win-win for both producers and viewers. So whether it be a remake, sequel, or adaptation, the truth is that remakes are here to stay for the long-run no matter how exhausted we may feel from the barrage of remakes thrown at us every year. But who knows, like the MCU’s Spider-Man, we may be pleasantly surprised by a new vision of an old character. At least I know for sure that you can find me in theaters for the opening weekend theatrical release of Spider-Man: No Way Home.