I'm okay with remakes. All I care about is the final product.
Why is okay for theater companies to keep doing Shakespeare, but filmmakers are looked down on when they put their spin on a respected classic?
If it weren't for remakes, we wouldn't have "Dark Knight", Abrams' "Star Trek", or this years' "Rise of the Planet of the Apes". I love those movies!
Craig Brewer is a respectable filmmaker. His first feature was very similar to the low-budget do-it-yourself kind of film a lot of people on this forum are doing. Reportedly, the original "Footloose" is the movie that made him want to become a filmmaker, in the first place. If that's true, then this is a project of passion, and I love that.
The same was true of Peter Jackson's "King Kong", and in my opinion, his love for the original was splashed all over the remake.
We all have dream projects, right? Realistically, none of us on this forum will ever get that $100mil budget that we so desire, but I'll tell you what -- if I ever reach that level, one project that I plan to do is an adaptation of a franchise we're all very familiar with.
The new "Footloose" is getting good reviews, and that, combined with Brewer's reported love for the original, is enough for me. I'm totally gonna watch it!