Samantha Rogan

Same film, different time and place

Director: Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza

Producer: Alberto Marini

Cast: Manuela Velasco, Ferran Terraza and Jorge-Yamam Serrano

Distributor: Film max

Country or origin – Spain

Budget – €1,500,000

Box office takings - $32,492,948

In this essay I will be comparing the original films rec and karate kid with their remakes quarantine and karate kid. Rec was released by film max which is a small Spanish company. Because the film was Spanish it had to have English subtitles which restricted its audience because not many people enjoy watching subtitled films.

Plot

The film follows a Spanish late-night television reporter, Ángela Vidal, through the lens of her cameraman, Pablo. During one report of the happenings in a local fire station in Barcelona, the duo follow a team of fire-fighters who get a call from an apartment building nearby about a trapped woman.. Something strange is happening in the building and the residents along with two police men, fire men and the camera crew are locked in the building. They discover some sort of disease is passing onto those who are bitten changing them into ‘zombie’ like creatures. Disease is passing onto those who are bitten changing them into ‘zombie’ like creatures. The camera crew find the key to a room which has been locked for 7 years; in there they find articles of a young girl

Samantha Rogan

who has been possessed. When searching the room Pablo and Angela find the possessed girl and keep quite so she doesn’t find them. When Angela tries to escape she falls and drops the camera you then hear the screech of the possessed girl and Angela being dragged away.

Director: John Erick Dowdle

Producer: Doug Davison, Roy Lee, Sergio Aguero, and Clint Culpepper

Cast: Jennifer Carpenter, Jay Hernandez and Columbus Short

Country of origin – America

Budget- 12million

Box office takings - $41,319,906

Distributor: Screen Gems

Quarantine was released by screen gems in 2008 it was an English speaking film so subtitles were not required and the film wasn’t restricted.

Plot

A television reporter named Angela Vidal and her cameraman Scott are assigned to follow firefighters Jake and Fletcher on their night shift. The crew responds to an emergency call from an apartment complex, they find police officers already on the scene in response to blood curdling screams coming from one of the apartment units. They soon learn that a woman living in the building has been infected by something unknown. After a few of the residents are viciously attacked, they try to escape with the news crew in tow, only to find that the CDC has quarantined the building. Phones, internet, televisions and cell phone access have been cut-off, and officials are not relaying information to those locked inside. As Angela and Scott continue to look

Samantha Rogan

through the apartment, a door opens from the attic and Scott uses the light on the camera to investigate. A boy swats at the camera, breaking the light. Scott turns on the camera's night vision. Scott and Angela hear loud banging noises inside the apartment. When Scott looks around, he sees a man. The man finds Angela and Scoot, Angela drops the camera and when she finally finds it again she picks it up and sees the man eating Scott. Screaming the man realises there’s another person in the room and drags her off into the darkness. 

You can see from both plots that rec and quarantine are nearly identical so why would screen gems consider doing a remake when rec is only a year apart?

I think John Erick Dowdle chose to remake rec because he knew it would make a lot of money. Also he knew there were barriers to the film such as it was Spanish and had to have English subtitles so he was able to have the opportunity in making it in English and having a wider audience with no barriers. Rec and quarantine were influenced by other films such cloverfield to use the hand held documentary style. Screen Gems bought the rights to produce and distribute the original film as well as their version Quarantine. This is an example of vertical integration; Screens Gems produced and distributed the films. They used synergy to create a fuss over Rec when they released Quarantine, by buying the rights they were able to release both films around the same time which means if the audience would have been watching Quarantine in the cinema and hearing about Rec the public would then want to either rent or even buy the film to compare them both.

I am now going to compare karate kid with the old and newest release, there was a longer time space between.

Director: John G. Avildsen

Samantha Rogan

Year of Production: 1984

Cast: Ralph Macchio, Pat Morita and Elisabeth Shue.

Country of Origin: United States

Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Budget: $8,000,000

Box Office Takings: $90,815,558

Plot

Daniel and his mum move from New Jersey to California. She has a new job, but Daniel discovers that a dark haired Italian boy with a Jersey accent doesn't fit into the blond surfer crowd. Daniel is able to talk is way out of some fights but then is attacked by a group of boys who go to the same karate school. As

Daniel is passing out from the beating he sees Miyagi, the elderly gardener leaps into the fray and save him by outfighting half a dozen teenagers. Miyagi and Daniel soon find out the real motivator behind the boys' violent attitude in the form of their karate teacher they find this out because Miyagi says he won’t teach him but he will take him to a karate school so when they arrive they soon realise it’s the karate teacher. So Miyagi promises to teach Daniel karate Miyagi shows Daniel that there is more to karate than violence, and perhaps the best way to solve the problem he has with the bullies is in the All Valley Karate Championship.

Director: Harald Zwart

Samantha Rogan

Year of Production: 2010

Cast: Jaden Smith and Jackie Chan

Country of Origin: United States

Distributor: Columbia Pictures

Budget: $40 million

Box Office Takings: $359,125,613

By having well known actors in the Karate kid remake such as Jackie Chan and Jaden smith this will make their fans want to watch the film. Because of the age difference between to the two actors this targets the range of different ages of the audience from adults to children. Also Jaden smith and Justin Bieber recorded the theme song. Justin Bieber is a worldwide popstar and using footage of the film in the music video is used very cleverly by the makers of karate kid because it is showing fans clips of the movie this will make them want to go and watch it. By Columbia pictures distributing the remake or Karate kid and also they brought out original shows that they did this knowing they would make a lot of money from an existing film.