After 11 Academy Awards, the 1959 swords and sandals epic “Ben-Hur” may have seemed a sure bet as a remake. But last weekend, American audiences did not respond kindly to it.
The remake starring Jack Huston and Morgan Freeman grossed $11.4 million in domestic ticket sales its opening weekend, or $4 million less than it cost to produce the film 57 years ago.
It’s another of countless movie remakes that have flopped at the box office, but studios will keep pushing them into theaters, film industry analysts say.
Other summer remakes such as “Independence Day: Resurgence,” “Ghostbusters” and “The Legend of Tarzan” have all yet to break even based on domestic ticket sales, but foreign sales should goose their earnings enough to keep producers from shying away from future remakes.
“We’re playing a global box office game now and North America alone isn’t the say-all-end-all in the total global picture of box office sales,” said Daniel Loria, editorial director of Boxoffice Media. “Many times what will decide if a sequel happens if a film flops in North America is how strong it does overseas.”
The North American market makes up only about a third of global box office revenue, according to industry estimates. It’s still the world’s largest film market, but by no means the ultimate arbiter of ticket sales success.
“Independence Day: Resurgence,” for example, did $383 million in worldwide sales. More than $280 million of those sales came in foreign markets, $75 million of which came from China and another $6 million from Russia.
The 1996 version of the film was not screened in those countries.
Less than 20 percent of “Ghostbusters'” revenue came from foreign viewers in 1984. More than 40 percent of the 2016 version’s ticket sales have been foreign and $6 million of those sales came from Russia. Neither version of the film was screened in China.
Remakes that might seem stale in North America are fresh to audiences in other countries that haven’t seen the original.
Domestically, remakes are known entities. They have in-born marketing advantages, and what’s more, they’re relatively cheap, analysts say. You don’t have to pay a team of writers to start from scratch if you’re working on yet another version of “Spider-Man.”
“There is a reference point. There is a concept already built in,” said Paul Dergarabedian, senior media analyst at market research firm comScore. “There is a way to describe the movie very quickly and that is the easy allure of a remake. That’s why a lot of sequels get greenlit as well. On paper at least, you’re kinda ahead of the game theoretically.”
But that doesn’t mean they always work. Studios pick remakes because the original movie brands are popular. What if a new version feels phony to dedicated followers? There’s a lot of room to screw up films something iconic.
And if a remake bombs — and they often do; just look at “Ben-Hur” or 2011’s “Conan the Barbarian” — studios write them off, scrap the rest of the series and pick up another script.
Remakes and reboots make those second, third and fourth films a safer bet, analysts say, but you still have to make a good movie, or audiences won’t show up.
