Why are there a lot of Hollywood-remakes of successful non-US-movies?

Several of the non-US movies you named are in foreign languages. Although foreign films are often available with English subtitles or voice overs, I'd guess that many people prefer to watch movies where the original dialogue is in their native language. Additionally, the style of foreign movies is different than their Hollywood remakes. I haven't seen the originals of any of your examples, but I do know that the American "The Office" tv show has a very different style of humor from the original British "The Office", for example (I realize that's a sitcom and not a film, but I think it's the same idea).

After thinking about it and reading the other answers (thank you Lauren and mootinator) I came up with a possible explanation. I don't know if it is correct though.

It can be - as often - about money. It makes not much sense for European/Indian/Chinese filmmakers to produce a remake of a Hollywood-movie (at least directly after the original), as everyone already knows the original movie. Hollywood has excellent distribution-channels and reach most of the world.

That's a completely different situation for non-US-filmmakers. Even in Europe it is hard for foreign European movies to make it to the cinemas. And even if they run in the cinemas, they do only with few copies and without big advertisement. I didn't know about 'Open your eyes' before I heard about 'Vanilla Sky'. I wouldn't know about '[rec]', if I wouldn't go to festivals. That are Spanish movies, and I'm German, so even European movies have a hard time to distribute in other European countries.

So there is a possibility to make money for producers in Hollywood. As they have access to good distribution-channels and have some advertisement-budget they can reach a new big audience and can make money. And it is not very risky, the original movie already showed that it can be successful at the audience it reaches. So, if it is possible to make money, someone will do.

That would explain the relative high number of Hollywood-remakes of foreign movies. And it would mean, that they are actually a good thing, because they bring good ideas to more people.

Films with subtitles don't get as many viewers, especially in the UK and US where we expect everyone else to speak English.

People will watch remakes of foreign films, and the studio knows that the film played well in its original market so it's a fairly safe investment.

Take Girl With A Dragon Tattoo - the original was good, but not in English. Its a safe bet that an English version will play in lots of US cinemas.

Movie makers look to reduce risk as much as possible. A film that's already done well in its home market is a safer bet than an unknown property.

The question contains the answer, in that only successful foreign films are re-made in the US. They are re-made because the industry knows that if a concept is a hit in one major country, the concept has a good chance of succeeding in the US mass market.

American hits can often be exported directly to other countries' mass markets, without having to be re-shot in each country. But that doesn't work in reverse... the American mass market usually just won't bite on foreign films, so foreign hits have to be re-shot for the American market.

At least part of the reason has to be that the Hollywood folks want a big opening weekend splash. If an excellent non-US movie has been out for awhile, chances are many of the US people who would want to see the movie have already seen it.

I wondered the same thing about ABC remaking Being Erica, a Canadian series into a US version, given that our cultures really aren't different enough to have to rewrite the script to get broad US appeal.

The writer of the above article has this theory:

...ABC likely believed that the original "Being Erica" had already been too widely seen here, particularly among target young female viewers, to simply import on ABC.

I can't think of a compelling reason to disagree with that assessment. A remake will often get viewers of the original wanting to see the remake and viewers of more mainstream US cinema. Whether it's worth the expense of an entirely new production is likely debatable.

It's about dominance and industry. Hollywood is A) an industry, and B) a US propaganda tool. Neither of them works optimally if there is competition. So it's kind of modus operandi for hollywood to take successful pieces of cinema art and hollywoodise them, so that their public keep watching the same old actors, same old crap.

I suppose another take on this would be that, in most countries, the locals must either be satisfied with only the films produced in their country (e.g. Danes must only consume Danish media) or consume media produced in the lingua franca for the region (which, in most countries, is English. Although of course there are exceptions).

Most countries don't have the resources or economic incentive to produce native-language copies of English-language media, and besides many locals already speak English. So, they don't really need anything to be dubbed or subtitled to understand it.

In the U.S. there is economic incentive and economic means to produce local versions of media popular elsewhere. And it's very unlikely that a given viewer in the U.S. will already speak whatever the original language is (which makes perfect sense; the only two languages a person in the U.S. would ever realistically need are English and, as a distant second, Spanish. Most languages are only spoken by a few million people, and those spoken by populations as large as the U.S. are, for the most part, oceans away), so it's likely they'll need dubbing or subtitles. Which is distracting, and arguably detracts from the film. It's also grating and unfamiliar if you are accustomed to all of your media being in your native tongue.

Short version?

Back in the day the British- more specifically, the English- conquered everyone. And the natively English-speaking country with overwhelmingly the largest media budget is the U.S. Solve for x.

It's certainly not like "it must always be remade?".

But indeed, a lot of movies from other countries do get remade in Hollywood. There could be many reasons for this :

1. Better marketing with international stars

Notable example : The Departed, which was a remake of the hong kong thriller Internal Affairs.

Let's just take this one example, do you think Hollywood would have been able to market the same movie so successfully without the big names like Martin Scorcese, Leonardo Di Caprio, Matt Damon and Jack Nicholson ?

I am not saying that all they do is just add the weight of the names. They are certainly great actors/directors, masters of their craft, and when they reenact a good story, they do make it very nice.

2. Technical Improvements

Hollywood definitely has the best infrastructure in terms of technology used in the movie. From sound mixing and lighting to special effects, Hollywood can certainly make use of the best technology in every scene, which might be lacking in the original movies.

Notable example : the TV scene from the movie Ring(2002), compared to the original Ringu(1998). The Ring(2002) delivers the scene much better.

3. English language

English language is the global lingua franca. So releasing a movie in English, definitely increases its prospects of being seen by more people. Of course it can be achieved by dubbing or subtitles, but they are not as effective.

So these are some good reasons, why Hollywood wants to remake these great movies.