Instead of having remakes...

[McCrutchy]

So I've been thinking, and I came upon an idea that I don't think has really been tried here in the USA. The major impetus for this idea was seeing the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street, which, regardless of whether you liked it or not, was nonetheless a remake of a movie that at the time of the remake's conception, was less than 25 years old. And what happened? The film was made, came out, was critically drubbed, and experienced a steep decline in it's second week because of the Summer tentpole Iron Man 2.

So here is my thought: When considering a remake of a more recent film, why not just re-release the original film, back into theaters, in a nationwide release, complete with new trailers and TV spots, as if it were a "new" movie?

What's most interesting is: that while a re-release is probably not going to net the same amount of box office receipts as a truly new remake, re-releasing the original would entirely eliminate the production costs of another film, so I would think that, if films were re-released wisely, profits could actually increase for some studios, especially in the horror genre, where remakes are often considered to be inferior, and many fans go out of their way to attend special re-releases anyway.

As far as I can tell, since the advent of home video, wide re-releases in the USA have been limited to WB classics, like the 1999 re-release of Gone with the Wind, or the "20th Anniversary Edition" of E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial, or classics that have been newly altered, like the original Star Wars trilogy in 1997 or The Exorcist in 2000, and I'd be really curious to see how, for instance, instead of re-booting Superman--again, WB simply restored the 1978 film and re-released that nationwide.