It sounds like something that would be made up out of spite, but Michael Bay can genuinely be blamed for the 21st Century’s fascination with remaking every well-known horror under the sun, with 2003’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre getting the ball rolling. He may not have produced it, but 2005’s House of Wax owed more than a debt of gratitude to Platinum Dunes.
If anything, the updated version of the 1953 classic that was itself lifted from the 1933 original boasted an even more eclectic set of producers, with Academy Award-winning Forrest Gump and Back to the Future director Robert Zemeckis listed as part of the team alongside Robert Downey Jr.’s future wife Susan Levin, and action epic extraordinaire Joel Silver.
House of Wax V3.0 may have been a hit after netting $70 million at the box office on a $40 million budget, but critics weren’t too kind. In a result you could see coming a mile away, Paris Hilton was even awarded a Razzie for Worst Supporting Actress, one of three nominations in total that included Worst Picture and Worst Remake or Sequel.
That being said, Jaume Collet-Serra’s cheese-laded nightmare has been garnering something of a reputation for being an unabashed camp favorite in the decade and a half since it first landed, something that’s been enhanced further by a surprising surge towards the upper end of the streaming ranks.
Per FlixPatrol, House of Wax has been melted down and reforged as one of the 10 most-watched features on HBO Max in the United States, and at this rate it won’t be long before a fourth iteration of the same story is announced for its latest fresh coat of paint.