Photo: Paramount Pictures (Getty).
There have been oodles of great film reboots, not to mention terrible ones, but there’s also an abundance of movies you’d be baffled to know were reboots at all. Some more than others, but for the most part we were surprised to know some of these movies had previous origins. The text movie titles tell of a reboot while the photos capture the classic original. Some we just put here so we could show you other cool articles we did. And you will click on those links, and you will like them!
Movies You’d Be Baffled To Know Were Reboots:
The Bourne Identity (2002)
The Matt Damon-driven action adventure featuring this year’s Oscar-nominated actor was not the first of its kind, derived originally from a 1988 TV movie release. The older one, also based on the 1980 spy thriller novel, has Richard Chamberlain in the lead with more focus on spy mystery and less on hunky actors incredibly confused as to the origins of their hunky-ness.
Fatal Attraction (1987)
Getting its chops from a near-hour-long 1980 British original set for TV, Fatal Attraction has an untraceable birthmark (no photo, sorry) to its classic 1987 reboot. Though the reboot has a lot of that Glenn Close doing her usual bat-shit crazy-woman act, it also managed to be another film where a woman is seductively trying to kill Michael Douglas. What did that guy ever do to women!? The film is, of course, getting another reboot now with Paramount.
Mr. Deeds (2002)
Before Adam “hoo-hoo-ha-ha” Sandler ever became Mr. Longfellow Deeds — actually, before Sandler was even born — there was a 1936 Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. The black-and-white original was directed by Frank Capra and starred Gary Cooper and Jean Arthur, but sadly it didn’t have the dashing eyebrows of a young, mysteriously mustached Peter Gallagher. It also didn’t have half of Sandler’s famous Hollywood crew.
Alfie (2004)
And we were too busy admiring handsome Jude Law to know that the 2004 womanizing Alfie was a redo of the 1966 Michael Caine Alfie, involving Shelley Winters and Jane Asher, who also happened to be in Death at a Funeral. Did you also know Sly Stallone’s Get Carter was a remake of Michael Caine’s? Seems like everybody wants to be Michael Caine. I know I do.
Funny Games (2007)
What’s funny about Funny Games is that it’s not that funny, but also funnily enough, it has an original most people don’t know about. Funny, huh? The 2007 American hit was prefaced by a 1997 Austrian thriller, starring Arno Frisch and Frank Giering, before getting rebooted by Michael Pitt and Brady Corbet. Though the original is great, we love Naomi Watts way too much in the reboot to say it’s better.
The Ladykillers (2004)
Before the Coen brothers released their Tom Hanks-led comedy thriller, there was a 1955 British comedy by the same name, written by famous screenwriter, William Rose, who also wrote The Russians Are Coming The Russians Are Coming in 1966 and Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner in 1967. The Coens, known for their popular black comedies, deliver up Hanks like you’ve never seen him, along with J.K. Simmons, Marlon Wayans and Irma P. Hall. The Coens just released Hail, Caesar! which is coincidentally set in the 1950s, a George Clooney-led film that’s been more than a decade in the making.
Dinner for Schmucks (2010)
What’s baffling is that a reboot could be so terrible, making it’s hard to imagine if the original was somehow worse, considering reboots have the opportunity to remake it better. The 2010 Steve Carell/Paul Rudd comedy fell short trying to do justice in its recreation of the 1998 French comedy, Le Diner de Cons (The Dinner Game).
Death at a Funeral (2010)
Another fast movie reboot was the black — as in African-American — comedy, an immediate remake of the 2007 British family comedy. The Frank Oz original, starring Alan Tudyk and Matthew Macfadyen, was quickly redone by playwright Neil LaBute with Chris Rock and his stand-up comedic cast, including Tracy Morgan and Martin Lawrence. Though LaBute’s comedy was funny in its own way, it was a very different take of a remake. The only similarities: a funeral and Peter Dinklage.
City of Angels (1998)
We were too busy noticing Nicolas Cage’s awful hair to realize his Los Angeles love story opposite Meg Ryan was a remake of Wings of Desire set in Berlin. Wings was directed by Wim Wenders in 1987, released in the States in 1988 and rebooted a decade later by the guy who did unforgettable movies (not) like Land of the Lost and Casper.
Piranha 3D (2010)
Maybe we weren’t baffled to know it’s a reboot film, but we were baffled by the 3D boobs of its 2012 sequel, a cinematic experience unto itself. The 2010 film was a modern remake of the 1978 horror classic, Piranha, which also had sequels and a 1995 reboot with a young Mila Kunis in her debut role. We could’ve included a photo from the 1978 film, but we figured this pair of beautiful, busty bouncy boobs from the 2012 sequel would be far more entertaining.
