I do have some theories about remakes and why they're getting made more frequently.
Obviously the first reason is that Hollywood has a lot of investors and they like well-known properties that have an existing, built-in fanbase. That doe NOT guarantee success, and we've seen several failures to that effect, but it is still easier to greenlight something well known vs. a brand new concept.
Second, I feel like a lot of us complaining about remakes are people who grew up with the first ones, and there's a whole generation that potentially didn't. For them, there is no "remake" per se as much as it's new to them.
Third, I think this has to do with China somewhat, who doesn't have practically any history with American movies until the past few years, so anything that's made is new to them but here we have a built-in merchandise base that can be exported (irony). I could be wrong but that's my impression.
