front cover of Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots
Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots
Multiplicities in Film and Television
Edited by Amanda Ann Klein and R. Barton Palmer
University of Texas Press, 2016

With sequels, prequels, remakes, spin-offs, or copies of successful films or franchises dominating film and television production, it sometimes seems as if Hollywood is incapable of making an original film or TV show. These textual pluralities or multiplicities—while loved by fans who flock to them in droves—tend to be dismissed by critics and scholars as markers of the death of high culture. Cycles, Sequels, Spin-offs, Remakes, and Reboots takes the opposite view, surveying a wide range of international media multiplicities for the first time to elucidate their importance for audiences, industrial practices, and popular culture.

The essays in this volume offer a broad picture of the ways in which cinema and television have used multiplicities to streamline the production process, and to capitalize on and exploit viewer interest in previously successful and/or sensational story properties. An impressive lineup of established and emerging scholars talk seriously about forms of multiplicity that are rarely discussed as such, including direct-to-DVD films made in Nigeria, cross-cultural Japanese horror remakes, YouTube fan-generated trailer mash-ups, and 1970s animal revenge films. They show how considering the particular bonds that tie texts to one another allows us to understand more about the audiences for these texts and why they crave a version of the same story (or character or subject) over and over again. These findings demonstrate that, far from being lowbrow art, multiplicities are actually doing important cultural work that is very worthy of serious study.

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front cover of Film Remakes and Franchises
Film Remakes and Franchises
Herbert, Daniel
Rutgers University Press, 2017
Contemporary media seems incredibly unoriginal, as Hollywood produces an endless flood of remakes, sequels, reboots, and franchises. We watch as the same stories, characters, and images appear again and again in different films, on new platforms, and as toys and other merchandise. Are these works simply crass commercial products, utterly devoid of creativity, or do they offer filmmakers a unique opportunity to reimagine iconic characters and modern myths?
 
Film Remakes and Franchises examines how remakes and sequels have been central to the film industry from its very inception, yet also considers how the recent trends toward reboots and transmedia franchises depart from those historical precedents. Film scholar Daniel Herbert not only analyzes the film industry’s increasing reliance on recycled product, but also asks why audiences are currently so drawn to such movies. In addition, he explores how contemporary filmmakers have used reboots and franchise movies to inject timely social commentary and diversity into established media properties. A lively and accessible overview that covers everything from You’ve Got Mail to The Force Awakens, Film Remakes and Franchises raises important questions about the intersection of business and creativity in Hollywood today. 
 
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front cover of Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise
Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise
From Carmen to Ripley
Anat Zanger
Amsterdam University Press, 2007
The first full-length history of the remake in cinema, Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise is also the first book to explore how and why these stories are told. 

Anat Zanger focuses on contemporary retellings of three particular tales—Joanof Arc, Carmen, and Psycho—to reveal what she calls the remake’s “rituals of disguise.” Joan of Arc, Zanger demonstrates, later appears as the tough, androgynous Ripley in the blockbuster Alien series and the God-ridden Bess in Lars Von Trier’s Breaking the Waves. Ultimately, these remake chains offer evidence of the archetypes of our own age, cultural “fingerprints” that are reflective of society’s own preferences and politics. Underneath the redundancy of the remake, Zanger shows, lies our collective social memory.  Indeed, at its core the lowly remake represents a primal attempt to gain immortality, to triumph over death—playing at movie theaters seven days a week, 365 days a year. 

Addressing the wider theoretical implications of her argument with sections on contemporary film issues such as trauma, jouissance, and censorship, Film Remakes as Ritual and Disguise is an insightful addition to current debates in film theory and cinema history.

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