Barbra Streisand slams Lady Gaga and Bradley Cooper's 'A Star Is Born' remake: 'It was the wrong idea'

• Barbra Streisand said she was surprised by how similar Cooper and Gaga's remake was to her version.
• Streisand starred in the 1976 version of "A Star Is Born."
• She added that she thought early reports of a Will Smith and Beyoncé remake were a "great idea."

Barbra Streisand said she thought Bradley Cooper's 2018 "A Star Is Born" remake was "the wrong idea" and criticized the film's lack of originality.

The 79-year-old icon recalled during an interview on Australian TV's "The Sunday Project" that when she first heard that "A Star Is Born" was being remade for the fourth time, Will Smith and Beyoncé were set to star as the film's famous musical lovers.

"I thought, that's interesting. Really make it different again, different kinds of music, integrated actors. I thought that was a great idea," Streisand said. "So I was surprised when I saw how alike it [the 2018 remake] was to the version that I did in 1976."

Speaking of Cooper's remake, Streisand added: "I thought it was the wrong idea."

Streisand later said that she couldn't argue with the film's success - the 2018 remake starring Lady Gaga, Bradley Cooper, and Sam Elliott grossed $436 million worldwide, received eight Oscars nominations, and picked up the gong for best original song with the chart-topping single "Shallow."

However, Streisand said: "I don't care so much about success as I do originality."

Streisand starred opposite Kris Kristofferson in the 1976 version of "A Star Is Born," the third iteration of the Hollywood classic. The original film was developed in 1937 by the old Hollywood producer David O. Selznick and starred Janet Gaynor and ‎Fredric March. The most famous iteration, however, is the 1954 adaptation, which starred Judy Garland and James Mason.

Later during the interview, Streisand said that the idea of finding a new approach to the musical, which was different from Garland's acclaimed performance, was key to her work on the 1976 remake.

"When I did 'A Star Is Born,' Judy Garland was so great in it, I thought, 'Oh my God, how am I going to do this?" she said."'I have to change it. I'll become a guitar-playing singer-songwriter, and Kris Kristofferson is already a singer-songwriter, and we'll change the story a bit.'"

In the 1954 adaptation, Judy Garland's character is a classical singer.

This isn't the first time that Streisand has criticized Bradley Cooper's remake. At the time of the film's release, she told Variety that she thought the film "was good" and Cooper did a "wonderful job" working with Gaga, but she thought the film would be different.

"I thought when it was going to be done it was going to be very different and have a multiracial cast, and the music was going to be rap," she said. "But it's more like the movie I made."