Movies You Didn't Know Were Remakes

These days it seems like there are more remakes, revivals, and re-imaginings than ever on the big screen. It makes sense, considering there are also more places to watch movies than ever before, and streaming services need to keep filling their rosters with fresh content. But if you take a closer look, you'll realize that Hollywood has always been cyclical. 

More recent films like Bradley Cooper's "A Star is Born," David Gordon Green's "Halloween," and Peter Jackson's "King Kong" are just some of the bigger remakes that have occupied recent headlines, but creatives have long been putting their own spin on classic (as well as fringe) stories. But while you may have your favorite iteration of "The Magnificent Seven" or "Dawn of the Dead," you might be surprised to learn the following films aren't so original as you thought. From classic gangster films to beloved heist flicks, these are the movies you didn't know were remakes.

Is there a cinematic character more iconic than Al Pacino's Tony Montana? Spout "say hello to my little friend" at any party anywhere, and everyone immediately knows you're referencing "Scarface." There are few gangster movies that hold up to the 1983, Brian De Palma-directed movie, which was written by Oliver Stone. Not only does it hold a 93% audience rating on Rotten Tomatoes, but it pulled in an 8.9 score with users on Metacritic. Plus, it's the movie that put a then 25-year-old Michelle Pfeiffer on the map as Elvira Hancock. 

So some may be surprised to hear that the movie wasn't the first of its kind. Back in 1932, "Scarface" first debuted with Paul Muni in the leading role of Tony Camonte, an immigrant who turned to the gangster lifestyle in Chicago. That flick was based on the 1930 novel "Scarface" by Armitage Trail, who based his novel on the notorious gangster Al Capone. This tale of an outsider working his way up the criminal ladder is a story perfect for any era, and if you haven't caught the original, it's worth a side-by-side watch just to catch the similarities, despite the character and location changes.

Updated cinematic tricks and visual effects don't always do a horror thriller good, especially when you're talking about a remake of a movie that was already considered pretty great. Enter Nicolas Cage playing a cop, one who arrives to solve the disappearance of a girl in a paganist community in Neil LaBute's "The Wicker Man." 

When it debuted in 2006, not everyone recognized that the movie was an updated version of the 1973 offering starring Edward Woodward and directed by Robin Hardy. However, in horror circles, that film has been praised over the years for its particular spooks and turns — especially its horrific ending. The same cannot be said for Cage's adaptation. Viewers largely panned the movie at the time of its release thanks to its unintentional comedy and its failure to incorporate scares in a cohesive way. In other words, if you're looking for a creepy watch and aren't familiar with either film, stick with the original.

In 1999, Geoffrey Rush, Famke Janssen, Taye Diggs, Peter Gallagher, Chris Kattan, Ali Larter, and Bridgette Wilson-Sampras came together to deliver an updated version of "House on Haunted Hill." At that point, it had been four decades since the original Vincent Price-led, Frank Castle-directed film first hit theatres in 1959, so the update had the chance to usher in new fans. It was the first project for Dark Castle Entertainment, a production label originally intended to remake all of Castle's legendary films. Like many horror movie updates, the more recent iteration injected its scares with newer technology and special effects under new director William Malone, but that wasn't the only difference between the movies. 

While both films begin with the same premise (a group of strangers are told they'll earn a large sum of cash if they can survive the night in a haunted location), the original film actually takes place in a haunted house, while the remake uses a shut-down insane asylum as the backdrop. From there, tales of deceit, betrayal, supernatural forces, and other creepy occurrences go down. But while almost everything can be logically solved in the original iteration, the ghosties are real in the updated take. As for Dark Castle Entertainment? It went on to remake another Castle classic, "13 Ghosts," before expanding its vision and tackling original films. 

In 1987, emerging star Kevin Costner was having quite the big year, what with his starring role alongside Sean Connery in "The Untouchables" and as the lead protagonist, Tom Farrell, in the politically charged thriller "No Way Out." In the latter, Ronald Donaldson-directed film, Costner plays a navy lieutenant who investigates the murder of a woman he was romantically involved with. But when the scandalous circumstances surrounding her death arise, it sets off a string of high-stakes events. 

The movie also starred Gene Hackman and Sean Young, and it was quite the hit with critics at the time of its debut. However this wasn't the first time Kenneth Fearing's 1946 novel, "The Big Clock," had been translated to the big screen. In 1948, John Farrow directed a film called "The Big Clock," which featured a magazine tycoon who commits the murder. And in 1976, French director Alain Corneau took a stab at the story with "Police Python 357." While all three films differ in terms of lead characters and their job descriptions, all three offer up that neo-noir vibe set out in the original tome.

In 2017, Kevin Hart and Bryan Cranston starred in the Toronto International Film Festival premiere of the funny but heartfelt dramedy "The Upside," in which a wealthy paraplegic (Cranston) hires a man with a criminal record named Dell (Hart) to help him out. Right away, the movie ran into problems, with the Weinstein Company selling the film off in the wake of the lawsuit against Harvey Weinstein and Hart being hired and then fired from hosting the Oscars. 

Still, the upside to "The Upside" was that it fared well with audiences when it finally opened in theatres in 2019, pulling in just over $125 million at the global box office. What many moviegoers didn't realize was that the film is actually a remake of the 2011 French film "The Intouchables." While both share a similar premise, there are a few key differences, including the setting (New York versus Paris), the Yvonne character's love interest storyline (played by Nicole Kidman in the American version), and the addition of Dell's son.

There was no shortage of star power in the 2006 ocean survival thriller "Poseidon," which featured the likes of Kurt Russell, Josh Lucas, Emmy Rossum, Andre Braugher, and Richard Dreyfuss. The Wolfgang Petersen movie shot under a whopping $160 million budget, and it was estimated to have wrapped with a net $77 million loss after only pulling in $181 million at the global box office. Peterson — best known for hits like "Air Force One" and "In the Line of Fire" — later revealed he regretted ever taking on the project.

It was a different story in 1972, however, when director Ronald Neame helmed the first on-screen iteration of Paul Gallico's 1969 novel. "The Poseidon Adventure" starred Gene Hackman and Shelley Winters, and it earned nine Oscar nominations, including wins for Best Original Song and Visual Effects. That version also fared well with critics and viewers, who practically doubled the lousy Rotten Tomatoes scores of the remake.

Who needs humans when you can create an entire film based on a trio of adorable, talking pets? In 1993, Disney and director Duwayne Dunham recruited Michael J. Fox, Don Ameche, and Sally Field to voice the two dogs and a cat at the center of "Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey," in which the animals traverse the Sierra Nevada mountains to return home. Families were definitely there for it, and the movie was a box office hit, pulling in more than $40 million worldwide. It was enough to prompt a San Francisco-based sequel three years later, with Field and Fox reprising their original roles. (Ralph Waite replaced Ameche as Shadow since Ameche passed away in late 1993.) 

That's not too shabby considering the movie was actually an updated version of the Mouse House's 1963 film "The Incredible Journey." Of course, in the original film, the animals don't talk, which definitely differentiates things. And like the book of the same name on which both movies are based, the original takes place in Ontario, Canada.

Years before Tony Goldwyn was being all presidential with Kerry Washington on "Scandal," he was the epitome of a father out for justice in this 2009 revenge horror flick. The movie also starred Monica Potter, Sara Paxton, Aaron Paul, and Garret Dillahunt, and it toyed with the idea of how far a scorned family would go to avenge their daughter after a gang of miscreants attacked her. 

Director Dennis Iliadis didn't have to go too far for inspiration though. "The Last House on the Left" was a remake of horror master Wes Craven's 1972 offering of the same name, which also happened to be his debut movie. That movie was made on a shoestring budget ($87,000), but it pulled in more than $3 million at the box office. The project has been applauded for being an "anti-establishment shocker" and the first of its kind, so in spite of the remake's notable cast, bigger budget, and Craven's return to produce, it wasn't quite as well received as the original.

The Coen brothers already had a successful string of movies to write home about in 2004, including instant classics like "Fargo" and "The Big Lebowski." But they were also coming off the glossier Universal Pictures rom-com "Intolerable Cruelty," which to this day is considered one of their worst films. 

So it was a gamble when they opted to remake the beloved 1955 British movie "The Ladykillers." In fact, the Coens and star Tom Hanks were aware that Brit viewers were "going to crucify" them for doing it. Yet they went about this comedy of errors in their own way, updating the characters and setting for an American audience that wasn't as aware of the original, Alexander Mackendrick-directed project starring Peter Sellers. 

In the 2004 film, Hanks stars as a professor who charms his way into renting a room from an unassuming older lady (Irma P. Hall), but then he and his criminal buddies pose as musicians in order to use her home to rob a casino. The result is another divisive film that managed to do one positive thing for the filmmakers — it finally changed some critics' minds about which Coen brothers movie is the worst.

There were more than a few quotable lines to come from Jay Roach's "Meet the Parents" when it hit theatres in 2000. The story of Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) meeting his girlfriend's parents (played by Robert De Niro and Blythe Danner) was a massive box office hit and even spawned two sequels, "Meet the Fockers" and "Little Fockers." 

What most fans might not realize though is that the film is actually a remake of a 1992 movie called "Meet the Parents," co-written, directed, and starring Greg Glienna. After the film's release, Universal Pictures acquired the right to adapt the darkly comedic story of a man coming home to meet his partner's parents and everything going wrong. New writers Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg took out some of the original film's more morbid elements in the remake (suicide, a dog drowning, and a shooting, among other twists). The result was a positively reviewed comedy that was nominated for a handful of awards and had everyone rethinking De Niro's nipples.

Brad Pitt may be an illustrious A-lister, but even the Oscar-winning actor has had his share of bombs. For example, take Martin Brest's "Meet Joe Black," co-starring Anthony Hopkins and Claire Forlani. The three-hour film follows Death (Pitt), who comes to Earth and inhabits a man's body to learn the ways of humans. He enlists a media mogul (Hopkins) to guide him along the way, but things get complicated when Death falls for his guide's daughter (Forlani). 

The movie didn't even double its $90 million budget, only earning just under $143 million worldwide. That could explain why the clip of Pitt's character getting hit by a car went viral in 2019, as new fans discovered one of the movie's most shocking scenes. It's safe to say that the original film on which "Meet Joe Black" is based on, "Death Takes a Holiday," fared better, at least from a critical standpoint. The 1934 flick offers a similar storyline, starring Fredric March as Death inhabiting a body in order to better understand humans. The difference is that it received generally positive reviews from audiences and critics alike.

Long before Robert De Niro was biting off faces and doling out controversial psychological horror in Martin Scorsese's 1991 iteration of "Cape Fear," it was Robert Mitchum who shocked moviegoers with his own take on the Max Cady character in 1962. Both stories follow a lawyer whose family is terrorized by a man he helped put in jail, and both versions are based on the 1957 novel "The Executioners" by John D. MacDonald. But while Gregory Peck starred as the lawyer in question in the first film, he returned as a smaller character in the remake so that Nick Nolte could take over the main role. (Mitchum also returned to helm the part of Lt. Elgart in the remake, and original star Martin Balsam appeared as a judge.) 

While some were divided over the liberties Scorsese took with the updated version, the acting definitely hit with Oscars voters when De Niro and supporting actress Juliette Lewis both received nods. Meanwhile, critics and viewers seem to agree that as an overall story, it's the original that reigns in cinematic history. On Rotten Tomatoes, the original has a critics' score of 96% and audience score of 86% while the remake falls below that at 75% and 77%, respectively.