If bad publicity is indeed good publicity, then even a bad remake does a service to the original version of a movie by creating awareness of its existence, and in many cases, its purported superiority. You can be certain that more people watched Park Chan-wook’s Oldboy as a result of Spike Lee directing his American version. I would have never watched Abre los ojos if it weren’t for Vanilla Sky, and I’m sure many people have their own examples of terrific international films that they came upon thanks to American directors who were particularly inspired to do cover versions of various movies themselves.
This isn’t meant as a justification for the dismissal of foreign films as too alien or obscure to be enjoyed by an average viewer—I find this to be an equally unfair and closed-minded approach to the bias against a movie like Let Me In before it’s even released (after its release, of course, it was quite well received, despite the usual objectors).
The movie world is large enough for there to be room for multiple versions of Oldboy, or Unforgiven, or whatever story an artist thinks they can put their own unique spin on. It’s unfortunate when someone’s solid work, such as Spike Lee’s on this latest movie, is swept aside before it even gets a chance to bury a hammer in your skull.
