Hollywood is so fearful of original ideas that it's even willing to revisit bad ones.
Not content with redos of titles that could use a little freshening-up, like "Clash of the Titans" or even "The Poseidon Adventure," a stupefying list of remakes have been announced for films that landed with a thud the first go-round.
On the boards from raids on Hollywood's back catalogue are everything from cheesy '80s comedies such as "Real Genius" and "Overboard" to comic-book adaptations that bombed like "Red Sonja."
Remember how bad "Overboard" was? 
If you were among the unlucky ones to see the film, hopefully a nice case of amnesia like the one that befalls the spoiled heroine played by Goldie Hawn has kicked in by now. Otherwise, in the word of "The Washington Post"s' Rita Kempley, the memories that remain are liable to be of " ... one-dimensional characters, a good long look at Hawn's buttocks and lots of pathetic sex jokes."
(See slideshow: "Remakes and Reboots No One Saw Coming.")
Hollywood has been remaking movies since its earliest days, but it used to turn to things that were hits the first time, Jonathan Kuntz, a professor of film studies at the University of California, Los Angeles, told TheWrap.
As for what the studios bankrolling the recent spat of dud remakes are thinking, their rationale remains purely speculative as they declined to comment for this article.
Though past instances of spinning flops into gold are rare, Kuntz points out that there have been exceptions.
"Gladiator" was essentially a rehash of a little known bomb, 1964's "The Fall of the Roman Empire," yet it was a box office smash, bringing in $457.6 million worldwide in 2000 and winning an Oscar for best picture.
But "The Fall of the Roman Empire" had a sweeping historical backdrop and the destruction of one the of world's greatest civilizations as a centerpiece -- dramatic fodder that would explain why studios would be amenable to another trip back through time.
Not so "Overboard." Currently in development at Sony and Overbrook Pictures, the Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell vehicle seems an odd choice for a remake.
Though it has enjoyed a healthy second life on cable, it had a pretty ignominious initial run back in 1987. It was critically lambasted and sank at the box office -- never going higher than seventh on the charts and stumbling to a $26.7 million gross.
In this current incarnation, Jennifer Lopez -- hardly a comedienne in the class of Hawn, and not much of a box-office draw of late -- is rumored to be taking over the role of the spoiled heiress who learns that money isn't everything after a spill off her yacht causes her to wind up with a working-class family.
Continuing the spirit of second chances, Sam Raimi will try to relaunch "The Shadow," a masked vigilante whose origins lie in the radio days of the 1930s.
