A statistical approach to Hollywood remake and sequel metadata

Hollywood film remakes, as old as the cinema itself, have attracted much professional, critical, and academic attention. They have been viewed by art critics as products of cultural derivativity and imperialism and commended by financial experts as low-risk business investments, closely linked to other forms of brand extension, such as sequels and bestseller adaptations. In this article, we adopt a film-historical quantitative approach to Hollywood film remakes by analysing metadata obtained from the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) and verified against reliable print and web sources. We analyse 986 Hollywood remakes produced between 1915 and 2020 in terms of raw and relative frequencies of annual releases, genre (in)stability, and patterns of transnational reproduction. We contrast our findings with those outlined by Henderson (2014a) in his statistical survey of Hollywood sequels, series films, prequels, and spin-offs, presented in his monograph The Hollywood Sequel: History and Form, 1911–2010. Having completed his list with recent sequential productions released between 2011 and 2020, we investigate the potential parallels between Hollywood remaking and sequelization practices. Our findings demonstrate historical discrepancies in various ‘content recycling’ trends, which help better characterize the cultural and commercial significance of remakes and serial forms in the American film industry.