Remakes were considered to be a safe bet in all the film industries. It was easy for producers to put their money on tried and tested scripts. But with the advent of OTT platforms and films getting dubbed into all the important regional, national, and international languages, remakes have gone out of fashion.
Cinema lovers are preferring to watch the original film instead of its remake. When the original films are being dubbed in a language they can understand, why would they go for something which is a copy?
Some people in the trade believe that remakes can still work but the makers must make sure that the original version of the film isn’t available in the language they are producing the remake.
Recent films like GodFather and Vikram Vedha couldn’t reach their break-even point despite having big stars and huge fan base because the original films were available in dubbed versions.
Original Lucifer was available in Telugu and Vikram Vedha was available in Hindi on OTT platforms. So the audience preferred to stay at home and watch the dubbed versions and skip the remakes in theaters.
There are also some trade analysts who say that remakes will not work in the future because even if the original versions aren’t dubbed still many people prefer to watch them with subtitles. Cinephiles want to experience the original flavor of the film than watch a remake where its original essence might have been compromised. Most importantly, there is no surprise factor when it’s a remake.
Some say that makers shouldn’t publicize that their film is a remake, they should maintain secrecy about the source of their script. But in this era of social media, it is impossible to hide the source of any film.
So a remake should be made only when the original version isn’t available anywhere in any version on the internet, which is practically not possible in this era of OTT platforms.
From being the safest bet to becoming the riskiest proposal, remakes have come a long way!
