Back to the '80s

At least 30 Eighties box office favourites, including Private Benjamin, A Nightmare on Elm Street and Conan the Barbarian are being dusted off by Hollywood film studios in the "year of the remake".

Clash of the Titans, a 3-D remake of the 1981 original, did fine at the box office having taken $61.4m in its opening weekend in the US. The revival of classic Eighties films is just beginning, as studios pin their hopes on the belief that cinemagoers will return to what they know in difficult financial times.

Reviving old films is a well-trodden path towards shoring up bank balances in Hollywood: George Clooney's 2001 remake of Ocean's Eleven, the Sixties Rat Pack movie, grossed $450m. The Thomas Crown Affair, starring Steve McQueen in 1968, was remade in 1999, with Pierce Brosnan in the lead role, and pulled in $124m worldwide.

A remake does not guarantee box office success. The 2004 remake of Alfie, in which Jude Law reprised the role made famous by Michael Caine grossed just $35m. After a number of sackings following a series of flops, many of Hollywood's surviving executives are turning to their childhood favourites, planning to spice up material that has already found success by using younger and cheaper actors and advanced special effects, including 3-D.

Conan the Barbarian, the 1982 film starring Arnold Schwarzenegger, is being remade with Jason Momoa in the lead role. Momoa, 30, who sports dreadlocks, is a former model and has appeared in several US television series. Anna Faris, who has starred in teen movies including Scary Movie, has been lined up to reprise Goldie Hawn's role in the 1980 comedy Private Benjamin, which will be reset in the present.

The film will be released by Warner Bros which is also remaking Police Academy and is said to be looking at a return for National Lampoon's Vacation.

Other remakes coming soon include The Karate Kid, which was produced by Will Smith and stars his son, Jaden. The heavy roster of sci-fi revivals is expected to benefit enormously from advances in special effects. While the visual effects in Ghostbusters and The Neverending Story are now celebrated as kitsch, modern technology will breathe new life into the action.

"For original movies, you need to advertise the idea, the story, it's about convincing people that it's worth seeing," one executive said. "With something that is branded, no education is required. It's also much easier to blame someone else if a remake flops. You can simply say it wasn't my fault."

Studios also hope to capitalise on the merchandising potential associated with characters that occupy a space in the popular imagination. Erik Newman of Strike Entertainment, which is developing a version of the 1982 sci-fi film The Thing, said the surge of remakes should not be taken as a sign that Hollywood had no original ideas. "I don't think it means we are out of ideas. These movies are great stories, and great stories are told over and over again," he said.