Remakes or adaptations with little or no credit (1 Viewer)

I got back on this subject after seeing High Tension, but it's been something that's really been bugging me the last few years. Sometimes a film is dead-on without credit, other times it's really similar but slightly adjusted.

High Tension - Intensity by Dean Koontz
(no credit given, direct adaptation)

Into the Blue - remake of The Deep

Disturbia - appears to be a remake of Rear Window
(subject to change if plot is really different)

The Girl Next Door - Risky Business
(I really liked this remake, but still there was no writing credit that I know of or any open acknowledgement of RB)

Bug's Life - Seven Samurai
(not really a big issue for me since it's a kids version, but still it would be nice if people acknowledged it more)

DePalma alone has several Hitch "remakes"
***SPOILERS FOR THESE FILMS, CAREFUL****






Dressed to Kill - Psycho
(shower reference is even made to the lead who will be killed early in the film in a different location, very, very, similar manner, including the killer in drag)

Blow Out - Rear Window
(he witnesses a murder he thinks, joins forces with a herione to solve the case, puts her in harms way and is unable to come to her aid when she gets in danger trying to get evidence while he is watching/listening)

Body Double - Vertigo
(wow, maybe hide the plot point from the title at least, husband gets away with murder by hiring a look-alike to pose as his wife for a fall guy to watch and then witness the murder, sexual attaction is used to get the guy to watch/follow her)



There are plenty more, some I can't remember and others I'm not sure about. I know there is the Lion King thing for Disney, I haven't seen the original to be sure. Haven't they had a couple of these in fact?

So which ones come to mind for you and how do you feel about this odd practice?


Let me add that changing settings such as Elizabeth being Godfather-like (aka the ending mostly) it doesn't bother me nearly as much, taking a story and reinventing it in a new location or new situation can be interesting, like Yojimbo-Fistful or even Seven Sam-Mag Seven.

This happens all the time.

You could say all the 80's slashers were just remakes of HALLOWEEN with different killers, different ways to die and so on.

You could say the countless exorcism films of the 70's were remakes of THE EXORCIST.

You could say the countless JAWS rips (be it whales, other sharks, giant turtles) were remakes.

The "teen/sex" films all follow the same formula of ANIMAL HOUSE or PORKY'S.

The disaster film just has a different disaster but the same type of character development and the same type of people die in each film.

They seemed to try and hide the fact that The Departed was a remake. There was no mention of the original film in the credits for the trailers and print ads. And during the end credits, the original film isn't credited after/before the screenplay credit as it usually is. Infernal Affairs isn't mentioned until half way through the credits, when everyone's already stopped watching it! But it's good to see it getting mentioned in all the reviews and articles and from the filmmakers of Oscar night.

X-Men doesn't credit Stan Lee and Jack Kirby for creating the original comic. They do get a Special Thanks though.

The Lion King is pretty damned close to Hamlet, just without the incest.

The most obvious one is The Island, which is basically a remake of a low-budget film called Parts: The Clonus Horror. There's a pretty good analysis of the two films over at The Agony Booth.

Although the idiots doing the voice-overs referred to it as a Japanese film, when it was from Hong Kong, and Marty deftly corrected that in his speech.

Oddly enough, some elements of "Strange Brew" are pretty close to Hamlet as well

The Lion King is a direct rip-off of a Japanese series of "Kimba - the white lion" - I'm sure this has been discussed elsewhere. Kimba was one of my favorite series as a kid, so I got a VHS copy and was shocked on how similar it is....including:

main villain - has a scar on his face
Friends include:
wise bird
wart-hog
Father figure dies - talks to Kimba from a cloud
Simba = Kimba - only replaced 1 letter in the main characters name....

There is a whole article on it here:

http://www.kimbawlion.com/rant2.htm

I have never and never will watch The Lion King.

I was just recently reading about a movie called "Chaos" (from 2005) which is supposedly a remake of "Last House on the Left", but completely unofficially. They say it's almost identical, but there no credit given. I've seen neither movie, by the way.

I disagree with OP's opinion on A Bugs Life. I think it may be inspired by Seven Samurai but not a remake(I've never seen 7S but I just read the plot on Wikipedia). You could also say A Bugs Life (circus performers mistaken for warriors brought in to save a town, hilarity ensues) was inspired by the Three Amigos (actors mistaken for fighters brought in to save a town, hilarity ensues).That plot point itself sounds like something that might have originally occurred in a 3 Stooges, or Laurel and Hardy short. It just goes to show that ideas are used over and over, especially with kids movies. For instance, can you think of ANYTHING original in the plot of Finding Nemo? or Cars?

DePalma's made quite a career out of remaking Hitchcock films with mucho added lurid action. But unless I'm mistaken, it's "OBSESSION" that's his 'remake' of "VERTIGO", even including a Bernard Herrmann score that sounds like a variation on the vertigo theme. Not a half-bad flick, but - you know - not exactly "VERTIGO" either.

I don't know if he actually credits Hitchcock or not - really doesn't matter much to me - but it's not exactly a secret that DePalma rose to glory with his various takes on the patently Hitchcockian themes and style.

"Body Double" was actually a mash-up of "Vertigo" and "Rear Window".

"Alien" is pretty much a remake of "It! The Terror from Beyond Space".

Plotwise, "The Lion King" owes more to "Hamlet" than any episode of "Kimba".

Pamela Anderson's "Barb Wire", ostensibly adapted from a comic book, is an uncredited remake of "Casablanca", although the stripping and fake breasts are novel.

Regards,

Jurassic Park 2: The Lost World not only shared its title with the Arthur Conan Doyle story but much of its plot as well. And yet the only author credited was Michael Crichton.
And the first half of Gladiator used many of the characters and plot of Fall of the Roman Empire followed by a second half which was similar to Spartacus then switching back to 'Empire' for the final duel.

I'm pretty sure Blow Out is a remake of 60's film Blow Up.

Yep, it's definitely a remake of Blow Up.

Many say that All That Jazz was an adaptation of Fellini's 8 1/2.

M. Night's "The Village" adapting (or ripping off) the book "Running out of Time".

KING KONG (1933) was pretty much a rip of THE LOST WORLD (1925).

And let's not forget Bronson's CABOBLANCO.

True, the 3 amigoes aspect is there too, but that film is also strongly inspired by Seven Sam. The first section of 7 Sam is about the bandits and then about the solution to go to town and find warriors. The characters go from scene to scene watching them in action, whereas the 3 Amigoes are famous film stars. After observing the characters they are approached to come to town to help them. That's why it plays so close to me. It's a twist version of it of course, but it's that story.

Not only that, but the 3 Amigoes are all similar, whereas in 7 Sam and Bug's Life the various warriors are all very different types which includes Mifune's comic relief. And just how many bugs are there? 7 if you count the twin pill bugs as one (since they always work as a single unit).

And in both 7 Sam and Bug's Life the plan is always for the town to help out rather than just the warriors doing the fighting. In 3 Amigos the 3 of them are initially supposed to do all the work and it's only when they are found out as frauds that they change their plan.

It's just extremely close to the pacing/plot of 7 Sam except played for a lot more comedy and with the twist that they are frauds. In fact if they aren't frauds it's 100% 7 Sam.

Haven't read Running Out of Time, but I'll keep that in my mind as an example.

Definitely think a case can be made for the Jazz/8.5 comparison. Artist reviewing his life's choices in a bizarre dreamlike use of his own creative medium. Definitely a very similar premise at the very least.



Barb Wire and Gladiator were two that I had in mind but had forgotten, good call.


If KK is a rip of Lost World (Doyle) then JP2 using the KK ending puts it in line to be a Lost World rip as well (down to the name). I don't know LW perfectly well to say, certainly I know the premise and have seen variations of it.


Outland and High Noon is another example. At least it was an example (like Bugs Life) of changing the setting drastically in order to make it fresh.


I just thought of another, isn't Legend of Hell House a remake of The Haunting (of Hill House if you are talking the Jackson story first) but with no credit given? Reading at IMDb appears to indicate that the source novel for Hell House is fairly different from The Haunting. Still as films they are at times pretty similar.

four brothers/sons of karie elder

It is very similar in premise and in some of the structure, though Bob Fosse did All That Jazz as his own personal version, i.e. the story of his own life. But there's no question that the influence was there; Fosse had earlier directed both the stage and movie versions of the musical Sweet Charity, which was an acknowledged re-make of Fellini's Nights of Cabiria.

I didn't know about the Japanese cartoon that became The Lion King--wow! That's pretty blatant!

F13>
DON'T GO IN THE WOODS>
SLEEPAWAY CAMP>
any other teen in the woods/at camp flick. There's no doubt what these films were trying to be like.

THE BOOGEYMAN certain had the same plot elements of HALLOWEEN with a touch of THE EXORCIST added in. Jess Franco's BLOODY MOON has the exact same opening of HALLOWEEN.

THE HOUSE OF EXORCISM, ABBY (to a point), BEYOND THE DOOR had too many similarities to THE EXORCIST and that's probably why Warner got them kicked out of the country.

Even with JAWS, stuff like ORCA, THE LAST SHARK, MONSTER SHARK, KILLER SHARK and various others used the same type of characters (a dumb mayor, a great cop, a crazy hunter) to where there's no doubt it's a rip.

How many times did Bronson play a variation on his character in DEATH WISH? The new film might have had a different character name, a different setting and a different cast but it's still meant to be that DEATH WISH role.