13 movies you probably didn't know were remakes
"The Magnificent Seven" is out in theaters now starring Chris Pratt and Denzel Washington. A group of unlikely cowboys is brought together to defend a small western town.
It's based off the 1960 version of "The Magnificent Seven" starring Charles Bronson, Yul Brenner, Steve McQueen, and James Coburn. But this film wasn't even the original.
It was an Americanized version of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 samurai epic "Seven Samurai."
Cowboys and samurai have a lot in common. Samurai movies were frequently used a base of inspiration for some of the most famous westerns of the 1960s. The films of Kurosawa were especially influential.
In 2016's "Ben-Hur," Judah Ben-Hur returns home to seek revenge against those who wronged him. The film has been one of the biggest bombs of 2016.
Released in 1959, the biblical epic "Ben-Hur" nearly outgrossed "Gone with the Wind" at the box office. It went on to win 11 Academy Awards.
Even remakes can be Oscar winners: "Ben-Hur" was based off of the 1925 silent film "Ben-Hur: A Tale of the Christ."
Al Pacino played over-the-top Cuban refuge-turned-Miami-crime-lord Tony Montana in the 1983 gangster classic "Scarface."
Pacino never would have shouted "Say hello to my little friend!" if not for the 1932 version of "Scarface," which centered around Italian gangsters in Chicago.
Leonardo DiCaprio played a cop pretending to be a gangster and Matt Damon played a gangster pretending to be a cop in 2006's "The Departed."
"The Departed" would be nowhere without 2002 Hong Kong thriller "Infernal Affairs," which also chronicles a mole and an undercover cop.
"Infernal Affairs" was followed by two sequels. Amazon is currently working on a TV series based on "The Departed."
In 1964, "A Fistful of Dollars" launched a new trilogy, a new kind of western hero, and a new movie star in Clint Eastwood.
The Man With No Name was based off a nameless samurai in ancient Japan as seen a few years earlier in 1961's "Yojimbo."
"The Maltese Falcon," which was released in 1941, is the defining film noir of its time.
The Dashiell Hammett novel had already been adapted once before for the big screen in 1931.
Ricardo Cortez may have played Sam Spade first, but Bogart made the character iconic.
In "Cape Fear," Robert De Niro famously laughs alone in a movie theater while seeking revenge.
The 1962 original starred big names like Robert Mitchum and Gregory Peck.
You can also thank it for the classic "Simpsons" episode "Cape Feare."
Steven Spielberg brought H.G. Wells' alien invasion novel "War of the Worlds" to the big screen in 2005.
Even one of the most pioneering filmmakers of all time borrows from the past. The novel was already adapted in 1953. While Spielberg's version was rife with 9/11 imagery, the original served as Cold War commentary.
A young Lindsay Lohan made a name for herself playing twins in 1998's "The Parent Trap."
It's a remake of the 1961 film of the same name in which Hayley Mills plays the twins.
Jeff Goldblum memorably transformed into an insect in the 1986 horror classic "The Fly."
A different scientist screwed up his teleportation machine in the 1958 version of "The Fly." It's a little less gruesome.
In 2000, Robert De Niro proved he had comedic chops with "Meet the Parents."
"Meet the Parents" is actually a remake of a 1992 independent film of the same name. While it didn't do well at the box office, it received enough acclaim that Universal snatched up the rights and remade it on a bigger scale.
Variety thought in 1992 the film may get a cult following one day.
In one of the most enduring modern romantic comedies, Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan fell in love on the world wide web in 1998's "You've Got Mail."
Nora Ephron was actually bringing the 1940 romance "The Shop Around the Corner" into the present day.
"You've Got Mail" isn't shy about its influences: Kathleen (Meg Ryan) runs a tiny bookshop on Manhattan's Upper West Side called The Shop Around the Corner.
A staple of holiday viewing movie marathons, "The Wizard of Oz" came out in the banner year of 1939 and completely changed cinema forever. But it wasn't the first of its kind.
There have been many trips to Oz. One version was made in 1925. The very first one, entitled "The Wonderful Wizard of Oz," was made in 1910, as the medium was still coming of age.
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