If there's one thing Hollywood loves, it's guaranteed success, and what better way to ensure success than to rehash an already bankable asset. Be it sequel, reboot, or remake, it seems most movies being mooted lately have ties to a pre-existing franchise.

With yesterday's news of Tom Hiddleston being linked with the lead in a remake of Ben Hur, it's hard not to think they may have gone a step too far. Upon hearing the news, the team became so distraught that the office soon descended into a collective of furious fist-shakers/loud exhaling. 

It's because of this reaction that we've decided to reach out to the money men in Tinstletown. No longer can we sit idly by as our favourite films are given awful modern adaptions, so we've put together a list of the worst remakes in history to showcase why they just shouldn't be attempted.

The Wicker Man

Often dubbed the "Citizen Kane" of horror films, The Wicker Man was regarded as a classic of the genre. Now you wouldn't go along remaking Citizen Kane, at least we hope you wouldn't, so why destroy its scary sibling.

The original suspense thriller about a detective searching for a missing girl on a small, mysterious island off of Scotland was given the hack-job. Now set in America, with the girl becoming the lead character's daughter, it was never going to be the same. Even a Nicolas Cage masterclass of overacting couldn't save this one, but God knows he tried.

 

Psycho

Arguably the perfect example of why remakes won't work. Director Gus Van Sant went to the drastic measure of copying every possible scene, as well as most of the dialogue, literally 'remaking' the film.

Unfortunately, he's no Hitchcock, Vince Vaughn isn't Anthony Perkins, and the film wasn't any good and the experiment didn't work. But it did give a rule of thumb to every other remake in case future directors were wondering what they could add to a film; when given the option, don't add in an unnecessary masturbation scene. 

 

Rollerball

The thing about this was the first one wasn't exactly a classic, so there was actually a pretty good chance the remake could have topped it.

Think about it, a game set in the future, where teams of rollerblading, motor-cycling, metal ball handling athletes nearly kill each other in front of a blood-lusting crowd, like a recently-pubescent male's wet-dream interpretation of Quidditch. What era would be better at producing that type of film, the 70's or the 00's?

Well the 00's screenwriter never wrote a script again, the director has made one film since (he was in the slammer for a while to be fair), and the less said about Chris Klein's career the better... so you be the judge.

 

Planet of the Apes

A blight on humans, apes, and planets, nothing came off looking good when Tim Burton's 2001 remake hit cinemas. It's not often such a financially successful film isn't penciled in for at least one sequel, but when the director claims he'd "rather jump out of a window" than do another, we can see why it didn't go ahead, not that we're complaining.

Thankfully the latest reboot of the series turned out to be pretty great, so we tend to forget about this one, but we'll always have this reminder.

The Time Machine

This is a particularly frustrating sequel because sometimes you have to take your money and run. After the 1960's version adapted the iconic book, something that most films fail miserably at, you'd think they could just leave well enough alone.

Unfortunately not, and just in case they hadn't tempted fate enough, they cast Samantha Mumba as the female lead. OK, so you've got a female lead who has never acted before, at least you didn't cast her younger brother for no apparent reason…

Well he did have a no.42 hit around the time, so we can't be too critical be we all like Lil' Big Man.

Every Horror Film Ever

With a genre as often ridiculous and obscene as horror, it defies logic that people want to rehash projects. It's a pretty basic formula, just give a crazy, preferably masked, guy some obscure pointy object, put him relatively near a group of teenagers, and let the rest figure itself out.

The list is too long to cover everything, but a special mention has to go out to Black Christmas, a film that managed to ruin a plot that saw a bunch of half-naked sorority girls fight off an escaped mental patient.


Get Carter

Oh Sly, why you do this? Sure he hadn't had a hit for a decade, and sure Dr.Cox was signed on, but you had to have known better.

Hollywood needs to stop "Americanizing" foreign films, and no amount of action scenes in elevators accompanied by Christmas music will change that.

*Note*

At the behest of our editor we've had to leave out Miami Vice, but we assure you we feel as strongly about it as he does, but on the opposite side of the spectrum.

Colin Farrell once said he doesn't remember filming a single frame of footage from the film, so if there's one lesson to be taken from this list, it's that with enough Class A drug use, things are easily enough forgotten.

Words Jason Brennan