From the 1964 'I Am Legend' to 2007: The Remake Business

From 'The Last Man on Earth' to 'I Am Legend': The Remake as Standard

A whole generation believes Will Smith invented the story of the last survivor in an empty New York. He didn’t. Before him, there was a remake with more action in 1971, and before that, a 1964 original version titled 'The Last Man on Earth'. Three films, the same skeleton, and an uncomfortable suspicion: much of the cinema this century has sold as new is just a higher-budget rerun. The phenomenon isn’t new or exclusive to science fiction. What is new is the scale: today, recycling is the main production line for major studios.

The classic almost no one knows has a predecessor

The case of 'I Am Legend' isn’t an exception; it’s the pattern. 'Scarface' has a 1932 version and a 1983 version with Al Pacino; some argue the remake not only honors the original but surpasses it. 'The Terror' (1962) became 'The Antiestéticarless Vampire Killers' (1991) with Scorsese directing. 'The War of the Worlds' went from 1953 to 2005. And 'The Thing from Another World' (1951) was already a remake when released.

The list grows effortlessly: 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1956), 'Invasion of the Body Snatchers' (1978), 'Body Snatchers' (1993), and 'Invasion' (2007). Four versions of the same novel in half a century. Genre cinema has operated for decades like an assembly line where each generation remakes the previous mold with better effects and worse memory.

Why so many remakes are released without mentioning the original?

Because acknowledging it costs money and prestige. The most cited case is 'The Pledge', the remake Sean Penn shot of 'The Bait', one of the best European thrillers, without mentioning it in the credits. The usual justification is that both stem from a novel, allowing them to skip crediting the intermediate film. The move is legally questionable and sarracena cheap.

It’s not the only audacity. 'Psycho' had a shot-for-shot remake directed by its own director, hoping the experiment would be understood as homage. Critics understood it as what it was. The difference between homage and plagiarism is usually the size of the lawyer.

Generational bias determines which remake seems legitimate

Here’s the key explaining almost everything. To those who were teenagers in the nineties, Scorsese’s 'The Antiestéticarless Vampire Killers' seemed perfect: Gregory Peck and black-and-white sounded like the Pleistocene. Meanwhile, the 'RoboCop' remake seemed an insult. The timeline, however, is nearly identical: 29 years between one and another, 27 years between the next two. One generation in both cases.

The uncomfortable conclusion: if you enjoyed a version at the time, it’s very hard to fall in love with the new one. It’s not an aesthetic judgment; it’s emotional memory. The original you saw first takes the spot and doesn’t let go.

When the remake surpasses the original: the cases that defend themselves

They exist. 'The Blob' (1988) is considered superior to the 1958 version, whose main appeal was watching Steve McQueen try to act. 'The Talented Mr. Ripley' (1999) remade 'Full Throttle' (1960) with more than satisfactory results. And 'Father of the Bride' now has three versions: 1950, 1991, and 2022.

The most honest remake is when the director remakes their own film. Michael Mann shot 'L.A. Takedown' in 1989 and remade it as 'Heat' in 1995. Sam Raimi did the same with 'The Evil Dead' (1981) and 'Evil Dead 2' (1987). Michael Haneke repeated 'Funny Games' in 1997 and 2007. Cecil B. DeMille shot 'The Ten Commandments' twice, in 1923 and 1956. When the author copies themselves, at least there’s no need to feign surprise.

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The remake business isn’t stopping because it works: it’s the only bet a studio can sell as safe in a market that no longer forgives failure. The question isn’t whether there will be more. The question is how many films we consider original today are actually the third or fourth version of something that existed and no one remembers.