Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
A live-action “Moana” movie is in theaters, and just like pretty much every other Disney live-action remake, it’s awful. Critics didn’t hold back in their “Moana” reactions, referring to it as a carbon copy of the far superior original. But that seems to be studios’ M.O. with these adaptations, from “The Lion King” to “How To Train Your Dragon.”
Maybe there’s a new song or some extra dialogue to try to cover up a plot hole, but these remakes of animated classics fail to make the case for their own existence. Amongst all these duds, there’s one remake that tried to warn us that this was the future of Hollywood, and we all failed to heed its warning.
1998 saw the release of Gus Van Sant’s “Psycho.” It’s an infamous dud that was notable for also being a nearly shot-for-shot remake of Alfred Hitchcock’s classic (one of the best psychological thrillers ever made). Van Sant’s “Psycho” is decidedly … not one of the best. Despite having much of the same dialogue and similar camera angles, the performances, particularly from Vince Vaughn as Norman Bates, leave a lot to be desired.
As such, it frequently makes many online outlets’ “Worst Remakes of All Time” lists, including Looper’s. But despite its reputation as an unnecessary remake, it laid the template for a slew of remakes in the 21st century to just copy what’s come before without any new vision or ideas, like “Moana” beat-for-beat copying the first film. Ironically, even Van Sant himself doesn’t think his grand “Psycho” experiment actually worked — and neither did anyone else, until Disney started copying it ad nauseam.
1998’s Psycho is a fascinating experiment
Universal Pictures
I’m not here to tell you 1998’s “Psycho” is good, but Gus Van Sant’s idea behind making it at least makes it more interesting than dissecting 2026’s “Moana.” On the “WTF with Marc Maron” podcast, Van Sant discussed the making of “Psycho” and how even back in the ’90s, studio executives were terrified of any new ideas. So Van Sant had the idea to take a classic film, in this case “Psycho,” and remake it verbatim.
He relayed his pitch to Universal Pictures: “I said, ‘What you guys haven’t done is try to take a hit and remake it exactly. Rather than remake it and put a new spin on it, just remake it for real,’ because I’d never seen that done yet as an experiment.” That’s the root word of this whole thing: experiment. Could you take a wildly beloved film, remake it exactly, and see the same returns, both critically and financially?
The answer was no. The 1998 thriller only made $37 million against a $60 million budget whereas the original made $32 million on a budget under $1 million. Even though it’s the same story, there’s something that can’t be recaptured from the original, which is what we continually see with live-action remakes like “Moana.”
Godfrey Chesire’s review of the “Psycho” remake for Variety touched on something Hollywood would benefit from hearing today: “The reason the conceit backfires, basically, is that the original depended on narrative surprises that can’t possibly be surprising now.” 2016’s “Moana” isn’t particularly known for its twist, but it has fun songs and great characters. The live-action remake repeats those beats to a numbing effect, becoming the platonic ideal of what Van Sant was trying to criticize about Hollywood all those years ago.
Psycho was a warning of things to come
Walt Disney Studios Motion Pictures
Gus Van Sant mostly remade “Psycho” to see if he could. He knew people would be mad, and that was the point. He told Bloody Flicks, “That was part of the experiment, which was to see if remaking a film as close as you could would have an effect. Backlash was thought of as good.”
He received plenty of backlash, but it almost feels as though audiences have become increasingly numb to these types of remakes, as evidenced by them routinely making a billion dollars. The live-action “Lion King” offers nothing new or revelatory about the story, yet it became a major hit. For some reason, the live-action “How To Train Your Dragon” has a 78% rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes and a 97% from audiences despite being the exact same movie from what came 15 years earlier. And now, there’s “Moana,” where the biggest deviation from the original is that they took out that outdated Twitter joke.
The “Psycho” remake exists to see what audiences would accept from a major studio. The live-action “Moana” exists for a far more cynical purpose of lining Disney’s pockets. There’s at least something to dig into with Van Sant exploiting Hollywood’s desire to play it safe, but there’s nothing of note with “Moana.” It’s a soulless film with no new ideas and thoughts to introduce the story to a new generation.
The same way “Psycho” shocked audiences in 1960, people fell in love with “The Lion King” and “Moana” because they were unique to their times. You can’t recapture that magic again. At least audiences roundly rejected such slop in the ’90s. But with live-action remakes getting high audience scores and decent box office returns, we exist in a coffin of our own making.