Remakes and reboots are a dime a dozen in Hollywood nowadays. Typically, they’re either terrible, cynical cash-grabs that fade away in time, but sometimes those remakes do strike a chord with audiences, such as Bradley Cooper’s 2018 film, “A Star is Born.” And while that film was a critical success that captured the cultural zeitgeist a few years ago, the film has one big critic—Barbra Streisand, who starred in the third remake of “A Star is Born” in 1976.
READ MORE: The Best Soundtracks & Scores Of The Decade [the 2010s]
In an interview with The Project, Streisand complimented the most recent “A Star is Born” remake but admits that she was hoping Bradley Cooper’s film would have gone a bit further to differentiate itself from previous versions. For those unaware, the 2018 version marks the fourth time “A Star is Born” has been adapted into a feature film.
She began by explaining that when she was taking on her ‘70s remake of “A Star is Born,” she wanted to be different from Judy Garland’s attempt at the story. And Streisand then decided to change the character into a guitar-playing singer-songwriter. But when Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga went on to remake it again, she doesn’t feel like they took it in a new direction. Ultimately, she thought the most recent version was “the wrong idea.”
“At first, when I heard it was going to be done again, it was supposed to be Will Smith and Beyoncé, and I thought, that’s interesting,” she explained. “Really make it different again, different kind of music, integrated actors, I thought that was a great idea. So I was surprised when I saw how alike it was to the version that I did in 1976.”
Streisand added, “I can’t argue with success. I don’t care so much about success as I do originality.”
As mentioned, the success of Cooper’s directorial debut is undeniable. His “A Star is Born” was nominated for 8 Oscars, taking home Best Original Song.