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Hollywood Remaking
How Film Remakes, Sequels, and Franchises Shape Industry and Culture
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Book Presentation:
From the inception of cinema to today’s franchise era, remaking has always been a motor of ongoing film production. Hollywood Remaking challenges the categorical dismissal in film criticism of remakes, sequels, and franchises by probing what these formats really do when they revisit familiar stories. Kathleen Loock argues that movies from Hollywood’s large-scale system of remaking use serial repetition and variation to constantly negotiate past and present, explore stability and change, and actively shape how the film industry, cinema, and audiences imagine themselves. Far from a simple profit-making exercise, remaking is an inherently dynamic practice situated between the film industry’s economic logic and the cultural imagination. Although remaking developed as a business practice in the United States, this book shows that it also shapes cinematic aesthetics and cultural debates, fosters film-historical knowledge, and promotes feelings of generational belonging among audiences.
About the Author:
Kathleen Loock is Professor of American Studies and Media Studies at Leibniz University Hannover, Germany, where she also directs the Emmy Noether Research Group “Hollywood Memories: Cinematic Remaking and the Construction of Global Movie Generations” (https://hollywood-memories.com/).
Press Reviews:
"A must-read major achievement. Kathleen Loock deftly and refreshingly gets past the mountains of discursive junk piled on top of the concept of remaking and offers instead a superbly smart and highly compelling thesis for how to make sense of it as cultural practice."—Jonathan Gray, author of Dislike-Minded: Media, Audiences, and the Dynamics of Taste
“An ambitious and admirable undertaking, ingenious in concept and execution. Examining not only the industrial history of remaking but also its impact on conceptions of the self, generational communities, and cultural memory, Hollywood Remaking marks a major step forward in our understanding of remaking practices.”—Barbara Klinger, author of Immortal Films: Casablanca and the Afterlife of a Hollywood Classic
"Skillfully interweaving original theorization and astute analyses of illuminating case studies, Hollywood Remaking offers an expansive and highly sophisticated consideration of cinematic intertextuality and seriality. This book significantly innovates the study of remakes, sequels, and franchises, particularly with regard to issues of cultural memory and generational belonging, and casts a new light on Hollywood’s historical practices along the way."—Daniel Herbert, author of Maverick Movies: New Line Cinema and the Transformation of American Film
"Kathleen Loock’s illuminating new book interrogates serial media formats—remakes, sequels, and franchises—to demonstrate the ‘commercial value, cultural legitimacy, and audience appeal’ of Hollywood’s long history of remaking. Thoroughly researched and expertly argued, Loock’s work provides a detailed account of Hollywood remaking in its industrial, cultural, and historical contexts. This wonderful book will make an important and lasting contribution to the field."—Constantine Verevis, author of Flaming Creatures
"Terms like remake, sequel, or spin-off are omnipresent, but they are overused and underdefined. Kathleen Loock is the first to take the hard road and really do something about it. Taking filmic remaking seriously as a meaningful cultural phenomenon, Hollywood Remaking builds a comprehensive and sustained theory of remaking based on a vast data set of filmic remakes over the last century that gives the lie to many cherished assumptions and beliefs. For anyone interested in film and film history, and talking sensibly about them, this timely book is a must-read."—Rüdiger Heinze, coeditor of Remakes and Remaking: Concepts – Media – Practices
"Loock provides a timely and welcome exit ramp off of the original vs. copy roundabout, encouraging readers to recognize and embrace the rich discursive interplay of Hollywood remakes with cinema past, present, and future. This engaging work persuasively argues that emblematic of the century-old practice of serial production, a remake’s story and universe (updates, series, sequels, prequels, reboots, etc.) always look backwards while at the same time continuing to expand and evolve and, in the process, invites each new generation into its constellation. Hollywood Remaking will be the indispensable companion to all scholars of film seriality."—Jennifer Forrest, author of Decadent Aesthetics and the Acrobat in Fin-de-Siècle France
See the publisher website: University of California Press
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