‘The Wicker Man’: the worst-ever American remake of a British classic
For many years, Hollywood has had a habit of remaking foreign films and television shows for American audiences. While some of these adaptations have been remarkably successful—such as Martin Scorsese’s The Departed (a remake of Hong Kong’s Infernal Affairs) or The Magnificent Seven (an Americanised take on Seven Samurai)—others have fallen painfully flat. Spike Lee’s ill-fated remake of Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy stands out as a cautionary tale, while City of Angels turned Wim Wenders’ Wings of Desire—a poignant, spiritual masterpiece—into a hollow, overly sentimental Hollywood affair.
However, today, we’re going to focus on American remakes of British cinema. While both countries speak the same language, culturally, we’re rather different. You only have to look at American remakes of certain beloved British television shows, like The Inbetweeners or Skins, to realise this. These shows both captured the experiences of British teenagers during the 2000s realistically, even if they often showed the more extreme ends of adolescence, creating a time capsule of sarcastic and self-deprecating humour, garish outfits, and excessive underage drinking.
Yet, when the storylines and characters from these shows were interpreted by American actors, the results were shockingly different. The same goes for certain movies. For some reason, several classic Michael Caine movies from the 1960s and 1970s were remade by Hollywood in the 2000s, but only one of them was given a decent amount of praise – The Italian Job. The film traded out Caine for Mark Wahlberg, and while it wasn’t highly acclaimed, it still worked well enough to generate a decent box office gross. Still, it was nowhere near as good as the original, which was full of British charm.
Alfie, which saw Jude Law take on Caine’s Cockney character, took us to New York rather than London. The movie was terrible, and despite having a good cast, it quickly became apparent that the only reason it was being remade was due to a lack of originality on behalf of the filmmakers. Then there’s Get Carter, with Sylvester Stallone portraying Caine’s character. While Caine appeared in the movie – even though he should’ve been trying to prevent it from being made – it flopped massively, suggesting that not all good British movies need an American remake.
That’s not all, of course. There’s Clash of the Titans, which was remade in 2010 by Louis Leterrier, better known for helming various Fast & Furious movies. We can’t forget Village of the Damned, either – John Carpenter’s remake of the fantastic 1960 version featuring genuinely creepy children and haunting black-and-white cinematography. Carpenter’s was a lot more lacklustre and, quite frankly, had no need to exist.
So, what is the worst American remake of a British film? While the movies mentioned above could all qualify, we’re going to have to hand it to Nicolas Cage for appearing in the disastrous remake of The Wicker Man. Released in 2006, 33 years after the original movie, Cage starred as Edward Malus – essentially the same character as Edward Woodward’s Sgt Neil Howard.
There are certain differences to the story, such as Lord Summerisle instead being Sister Summerisle and the movie drawing from influences like the Salem witch trials rather than Celtic paganism. The movie is nowhere near the levels of brilliance that informed Robin Hardy’s film, which included British folklore as such a large part of its narrative.
The Wicker Man feels intrinsically British, so a version adapted for an American setting just feels like a waste of time. If the film had explored more original ideas – taking light inspiration from the film but still existing as something completely different – then it might have been more successful. Sadly, the movie, directed by Neil LaBute, was unsalvageable. It gave us some iconic Cage moments, although it’s far from one of his strongest performances.
“Not the bees!” he exclaims, and rather than feeling sorry for Cage’s Edward, you can’t help but laugh.
