What is the point of remakes?

[MifuneFan]

I don't really think about it, but two of my favorite films are actually remakes. Floating Weeds (1959) is Ozu's own remake of his 1934 silent A Story of Floating Weeds. And the other of mine is Chusingura (1968), which there's been numerous adaptations of.

I actually find it fascinating when a director remakes his own film. Ozu has done it several times, and Hitchock too. Cecil B Demille of course also remade his Ten Commandments film, and it's the remake that is the most widely known of the two. Someone mentioned Metropolis earlier, adn it's actually something I thought about recently . I would have loved to see Fritz Lang remake Metropolis. His career spans early German silents, into colorful Indian epics, westerns, and film noir. He was an incredibly visionary, and it would have been pretty great to see what he could do with color, and sound for Metropolis. I do consider the original to be a masterpiece, and so far ahead of its time.