U.S and Other Foreign Remakes

Skullface McGubbin

I've been wondering about remakes of TV shows and why they remake them. I can understand why it's done with foreign language shows but when I see the likes of Shameless and the Inbetweeners etc. getting American versions made (and there are rumours of Love/Hate getting the USA treatment), I don't fully understand why they do it.

Do Americans really not want to watch non U.S programming?
Or is it just TV companies being lazy re-using scripts & material to provide work opportunities for actors and the like?

Atlantic Dawn

It's normally done where a TV show has ceased production and they decide to remake it in the US, gives the show owners bags of cash and normally the original writers come onboard too. There's a relative minimum risk for the studio with the remake as they have established characters from the original script they can use. The Office remake would stick in my mind as one show where the US version to me is superior to the UK original.

eeguy

The US I.T. Crowd

Chris O'Dowd = Joel McHale???

Venom

eeguy wrote: »

The US I.T. Crowd

Chris O'Dowd = Joel McHale???

I always thought the pilot episode of US Red Dwarf was bad until I watched US I.T. Crowd.

darkdubh

I dunno,traditionaly Americans find it very hard to relate to a tv series if its an unfamiliar setting even if its in English.Its a shame theyre not more open minded in their tv viewing habits.They even attempted a remake of Dads Army,only the pilot was made thankfully.They showed a very brief snippit of it during a BBC doc on DA some years ago.

EDIT:Here it is.

https://youtu.be/1q1ToUWu3Cc

mrkite77

It's about the amount of content. Why buy a show that has 6 episodes when you can get the rights and make 100?

I don't think americans have problems watching non-US content, Downton Abbey and Doctor Who are very popular here.

But the major networks don't want to air shows they don't have exclusive first-run access to... which is why they don't air things they didn't make themselves.

That's not the case for online streaming, though. Looking at Hulu's most popular shows, there's tons of anime, telenovelas, and k-drama in the top 100. (and holy crap are there a lot of telenovelas in that list)... and it's all subbed. Only a few anime on Hulu offer dubbed versions.

HH Barbara Allen

MrKite is correct. It's about money, not about Americans being close-minded about unfamiliar locales.

Harry Palmr

Back in the day ITC used to gear its production for the US market which is why the Avengers and other titles ran for 23-26 episodes per series rather than 12 which was the typical length, its also why everything was shot on 35m film not videotape