The most remade movie of all time
Most movie fans will agree that remakes of classic films are a plague on the industry we know and love. Whilst this is true in part, with countless remakes being completely rubbish in comparison to their originals (we’re looking at you, 2013 Oldboy), some stories are simply timeless, with writers and producers wishing to update historical tales for modern audiences to enjoy.
Indeed, some stories are too great not to be retold, with Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol seeing eight remakes after the original short film, directed by Walter R. Booth, was released all the way back in 1901. Similarly, Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s iconic monster movie King Kong hypnotised audiences so much so that it was remade three times, once in 1976, then twice in the 21st century, to varying degrees of success.
On the other hand, many more modern movies have been so great that they have forced several remakes, including the 1964 science fiction movie The Last Man on Earth, which was remade in 1971 as The Omega Man, and once again in 2007 as the Will Smith flick, I Am Legend. The 1974 film The Taking Of Pelham One Two Three also saw similar levels of industry success, being reimagined in 1998 and 2009.
Still, none of these aforementioned films can compare with the one movie that has been remade a total of 23 times and counting. You might think that a film like this must have come out in the early years of the 20th century, but think again, the Italian movie Perfect Strangers was only released in 2016.
Written and directed by Paolo Genovese, Perfect Strangers is a pretty simple drama that tells the story of a group of middle-aged friends who get together for a dinner party and agree to play a new-age party game. Not involving a board or any pieces, the rules of the game are that you place your mobile phone in the middle of the dinner table and have to make every call, text or message that you get public.
The film was a hit, and Greek director Thodoris Atheridis saw the opportunity to remake the movie when it was still playing in theatres, releasing his reimagining mere months after the original. Atheridis’ film made less of a splash, but this didn’t stop the Spanish filmmaker Álex de la Iglesia from giving a go at the material in November 2017, around a year after the Greek version.
The Spanish remake did far better than the Greek one, popularising the movie to international markets as a result. Then, in 2018, the film was remade in Turkey, France, Mexico, China, Hungry and South Korea, with the simplicity of the film being the perfect package to be remade across the world.
In the years following 2018, Perfect Strangers has seen releases in Hungary, Mexico, China, Russia, Poland, Germany, Japan, Norway, Iceland and many more countries, making it one of the most lucrative concepts in cinema history.
