The 5 Best And 5 Worst Comedy Movie Remakes

Remakes. Where would Hollywood be without them? Actually working harder to find bold new concepts and original stories, you say? Perhaps. Still, studio heads aren't exactly looking to give up on their tried and true properties anytime soon — in fact, it feels like they've actually ratcheted up production on remakes in recent years. So while we'd all prefer to see the film industry take a few more chances, we should probably just get used to the idea that they're content to keep remaking and re-imagining movies until we stop paying to see them.

Box office numbers aside, even stodgy studio heads have to admit they've delivered their fair share of perfectly dreadful remakes over they years — so much so that the word itself has come to carry a particular sort of stigma with movie fans. But remakes aren't necessarily a bad thing; in fact, sometimes they can even be a lot of fun. That can be especially true of comedy remakes that look to score fresh laughs from recycled material. They can certainly be hit or miss, but they aren't all bad — and with that in mind, here are our picks for the five best and five worst comedy movie remakes.  

If Hollywood has proven anything with its remakes, it's that nothing is sacred — not even, for example, Walter Matthau's 1976 underdog classic Bad News Bears. Actually, this tale of a disreputable youth baseball coach turning a ragtag, foul-mouthed band of misfits into a group of winners seemed well-suited to a modern day update. With indie auteur Richard Linklater (fresh off of a big hit in School of Rock) at the helm and Billy Bob Thornton in the lead,  there was reason to believe their version of Bad News Bears might be a lot of fun.

Then the film was released, and there really isn't much to like about it. Thornton pushes the sleaze factor well beyond the realm of likable. Greg Kinnear smarms and smirks his way through one of his worst performances, and the brilliant Marcia Gay Harden is completely wasted in a thankless role as a single mom/potential romantic interest. Worst of all, Linklater brings nothing fresh to the mix, crafting a stale, predictable narrative with no sense of humor. While Bad News Bears still delivers on its well-intentioned message and sort of nails the crass antics of its youthful cast, it swings and misses when it comes to heart. As such, this stinker remains a rare but undeniable misfire for Linklater.

Few elements are more important in a remake than casting. While the Coen brothers scored big by casting Jeff Bridges as the lead in True Grit, not all films fill their big shoes with grace. For example, here's the Russell Brand-led remake of Arthur. Based on the Oscar-winning rom-com from 1981, Brand's 2011 remake contains little of the romance, wit, or wisdom of the original, and ultimately leaves one scratching their head as to why it even exists.

Brand is the main problem here, with his mean-spirited take on the perpetually inebriated Arthur lacking any of the charm or elegance of Dudley Moore's original. Brand lacks the polish of the classically trained, comedically gifted Moore, who used his boozy swagger to mask a wounded, lonely soul just below surface. Brand, it seems, was incapable of alluding to that loneliness, transforming Arthur from brash but well-intentioned misfit into an insufferable lout — and basically the same character he played in movies like Forgetting Sarah Marshall. his work here turns Arthur into an all but unendurable mess that even the inimitable talents of Helen Mirren, Greta Gerwig, and Luis Guzmán cannot save. 

Occasionally, it's a character more than an actual film that should simply remain untouched. If you're lucky enough to have encountered Peter Sellers' inimitable turn as the bumbling Inspector Jaques Clouseau in the Pink Panther movies, you're already aware that no actor living or dead could match Sellers' impeccably aloof performance in terms of comedic timing or physicality. That didn't stop Steve Martin (no comedic slouch himself) from trying in 2006's The Pink Panther.

Most moviegoers got their first taste of Martin's Clouseau (and absurdly bad French accent) in a pithy "turn your cell phone off" pre-movie ad that was seriously lacking in wit or whimsy. Concerns reached fever pitch when the film's uninspired trailer finally made an appearance. Those concerns were confirmed when the film (directed by future Stranger Things guru Shawn Levy) arrived in theaters — that Rotten Tomatoes score speaks for itself. Despite a wave of damning reviews, The Pink Panther still turned enough of a profit at the box office to get an equally dreadful sequel produced, proving beyond a doubt that there really is no accounting for taste.

In the canon of '80s comedies, the Goldie Hawn/Kurt Russell-led Overboard is one of those middle of the road offerings that didn't fare well with critics, did okay at the box office, and found a sort of cult following on video. It was the sort of "known but can be improved upon" film that seemed to have the words "remake me" written all over it, but the producers of 2018's Overboard remake probably should've ignored that message.

Overboard's central narrative may well the culprit. Even in the original, there was always something a little creepy about a down on his luck carpenter duping a mean-spirited heiress with amnesia into thinking they were married, although Russell and Hawn overcame it on the strength of their comedic chemistry. The remake tries to overcome it by gender-swapping the lead roles, but it doesn't work. Director Rob Greenberg complicates matters by bogging the narrative down with a serious lack of comedic timing. Anna Faris tries to salvage the mess, but the end result is a film that isn't funny, and isn't remotely romantic. Still, like the original, Overboard overcame abysmal reviews to turn a profit. Again, there's no accounting for taste.

You've Got Mail aside, modern updates of classic films don't always turn out so well.  If you're looking for proof, look no further than Adam Sandler's remake of Frank Capra's Academy Award-winning comedy Mr. Deeds Goes to Town. In case you haven't seen the film that netted Capra the second of his three Oscars for Best Director, it follows the story of a small-town man (Gary Cooper) who inherits a fortune, moves to New York, falls in love with an impetuous reporter (Jean Arthur), and makes an unexpected decision that leads the world to believe he's completely insane.

Mr. Deeds Goes to Town is sweet, expertly scripted, beautifully paced, and packs a lot of laughs into a film that also deftly examines America's perpetual obsession with wealth and celebrity. Adam Sandler's Mr. Deeds is not. While Sandler's remake keeps the crux of the original story intact, the rest of the film is all but unrecognizable. Sandler brings the usual dimwitted man-child routine to his role as the kind-hearted Longfellow Deeds, director Steven Brill lets the overall tone of the story follow suit, and the entire enterprise devolves into a series if crass, simplistic humor that wholly undermines the original narrative's noble ambitions. Simply put: Adam Sandler is no Gary Cooper, Steven Brill is no Frank Capra, and Mr. Deeds is not even in the same ZIP code as Mr. Deeds Goes to Town.