The document discusses several reasons why films may be remade and provides examples. It analyzes the Spanish film REC (2007) and its American remake Quarantine (2009), noting they were shot similarly but the remake had a larger budget and more famous actors. It also examines the remake of The Karate Kid (2010), highlighting how the involvement of Will Smith and Jackie Chan helped market the film and related products. Columbia Pictures distributed both films, showing how remakes can utilize horizontal integration between production and distribution for profit.

1. Jack Mulligan
Remaking Films
Within film making people remake films for different reasons like if they want to give an old film new
life by bringing it to the 21st century or to make money. Ways of doing this is by putting big stars,
trends, synergies between films and the distribution. The film I will be looking are the original film
REC (2007) and the remake Quarantine (2009) and the classic karate kid (1984) and the remake
karate kid (2010).
REC was a Spanish horror film which was directed by Jaume Balaguero. It was filmed in the style of a
TV documentary and that was the give the feeling that you were actually there in the building, the
style also resembles a first person video games like left for dead and Dead Island. The styles in the
film of the first person video game, reality TV shows and the video camera
techniques are trends and ways of establishing their target audience because
the audience who will like these shows and games will enjoy the film. You
can see the similarities within the film and it trends, throughout the film you
can aspects of the first person shooter games like when there fighting the
infected you can only see the persons arms at the side, this is to make you
feel that you are actually therein the building with the infected. The reality
TV where there camera style never changes and constantly hand held
documentary style.
Now Quarantine is the American remake of the Spanish film REC, quarantine is more or less shot for
shot compared to the original. As Quarantine had a bigger production costs of $12,000,000 they
could afford to have more known actors in the film where as REC didn’t. The distribution factors
between the two films are different as REC was small time called Filmax but Quarantine’s distributor
was Screen gems which is a subsidiary of Sony production. As Screen gems produced the film, they
showed the film in cinemas which they own and there making money from the DVD sales of REC, this
is what you call synergy. As you see that the remake was made just one year after when REC was
made and that is because this style of film was getting more and more popular with film like
cloverfield and dairy of the dead, so they released the remake Quarantine to an English speaking
audience as popularity grew.
In the remake of the karate kid there are many factors which caused the production of the remake
and made it successful like the way will smith produced the film and his son was the star role. With
the Smiths in the film there now get more money to make the film and because of the celebrity
status more people will come and watch or buy the film. With Jackie Chan in the film which is a big
star in martial arts film this will bring the film to an Asian audience. During the film release there
were many products which help advertise the film and also make money of its popularity, karate kid
phone applications were release before and during the film’s release, soundtrack and merchandise
were release to boost its popularity.

2. Jack Mulligan
Columbia pictures who distributed the original karate kid also produced the remake as well and this
is referred to as horizontal integration. By endorsing the product in different ways sony will be
making more money with the popularity and the amount of advertising of the new remake people
who has seen the remake might want to watch the original to compare the films. While remake of
the film will be on DVD sale the original will be put next to each other, there will be merchandise
from both films such as t-shirts, posters and toys.
When Steven Spielberg released his remake of war of the world he released it sent an ideological
message of anti terrorism and how the world should stand together on the war on terror. The film
also has resemblance of the 9/11 acts in America. Such as scenes where the voice over man at the
beginning is saying the world is being watched over, this is a reference to bin laden watching over
the world. Another scenes where references are made about the 9/11 attacks are when the big
space ships are blasting the cities and people are running away, also near the ending when tom
cruise gets back home he is covered in white ash. The production factors about
the remade film are that the two films are produced by the same company
paramount studios, this is synergy by producing the remake the popularity of
the original will therefore increase and they are making more money from both
films.