This Movie Remake Is Better Than the Original

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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The history of American movies includes films that were much better than their remakes, both in terms of the box office and the opinions of critics. Among the best known is “Scent of a Women,” released in 1992, and starring Al Pacino. An obscure version was released in 1974. Another, “Lassie,” a famous TV show about a dog, was turned into a movie in 1994 and then again in 2005.

First movies are road tests for remakes. If the first version does well, so too should the second. And, movies that are released decades apart are aimed at different generations. Finally, characters have already been developed and do not have to be reinvented.

To determine the movie remake that was better than the original, 24/7 Tempo developed an index based on Internet Movie Database rating, Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score. Index scores for remake movies were compared to those of the original films.

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The movie remake that was better than the original was “The Maltese Falcon” released in 1941. Here are the details:

> Directed by: John Huston
> Starring: Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Gladys George
> Original movie: The Maltese Falcon (1931)
> Difference in index score: 0.86

The original “The Maltese Falcon” was a critically praised movie. Its remake, “The Maltese Falcon,” released just 10 years later, was not only better but it was considered the first major film noir. The 1941 version still holds a perfect Freshness score on Rotten Tomatoes. In both movies, a private detective takes a case and gets caught up in the mystery of a statuette known as the Maltese Falcon.

Methodology: To determine the movie remake that is better than the original, 24/7 Tempo developed an index based on several measures from the Internet Movie Database and Rotten Tomatoes. The index is a composite of each movie’s IMDb rating, Rotten Tomatoes audience score, and Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer score. All ratings were weighted equally. Index scores for remake movies were compared to those of the original films. Supplemental data on domestic box office and production budgets by movie came from industry data site The Numbers.

Click here to see all the movie remakes that are better than the original.
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Photo of Douglas A. McIntyre
About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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