The 'REMAKE' : Hollywood's Best New Idea

Always searching for new content, the Hollywood studios have grabbed-on to a new concept: turning documentary movies into full-length feature films.

Warner Bros. and Roberts to make film based on 'Batkid' docu

It started with 'Batkid Begins', a docu about a 5-year old boy who asked the Make-A-Wish Foundation to be Batman for a day.  The 'Batkid' documentary screened in 14 auditoriums for one showing and grossed $75,000, not great, but nonetheless caught the eye of Warner Bros. and Julia Roberts who are now making a movie about this story.

Documentary-to-feature deals are catching-on big in Hollywood and popular ones, like 'Making a Murderer' and 'The Jinx' are being turned (the industry word is 'remake') into feature films. What's good about this scheme is that the docus come with a built-in awareness and doing a remake jump-starts the entire film writing and development process.

Remake rights vary but are typically in the low six figures - which is cheap (by industry standards) for good source material and a bit of a windfall for docu owners - as in the U.S. facts contained in documentaries are considered part of the public domain, meaning producers aren't legally obligated to pay for the remake rights to create a feature version based upon the same events.  However, the studios, by paying the small sum for the remake rights, get access to the documentary's director, narrative, subjects, and footage that didn't make the final cut - essentially the hardest parts of crafting a story.

Eagle Huntress

CMG has talked about the current trend of making movies that straddle the multiplex and arthouse and this scheme fits perfectly into that notion. Other popular documentaries in remake include: 'Best of Enemies' (the William Buckley vs. Gore Vidal debates), and 'The Eagle Huntress' a Fox remake about a Mongolian teenager who hunts with a pet eagle.

The documentary remake is a win-win all around: for the documentary maker, the studio, and the moviegoer. Look for more and more remake screenings at your local cinema.