I don't understand why American's have this need to remake things and neuter them.
Money.
North America is the single biggest box office market in the world. Often, a movie will make 30 to 60 percent of its gross in N.A. alone, which is huge.
Here is the US all-time box office:
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegrossThe world all-time:
http://www.imdb.com/boxoffice/alltimegross?region=world-wideBoth
Spider-Man and
Dark Knight made 50% of their total worldwide gross in North America alone.
If any other region were responsible for such huge percentages, I am sure we'd see localized versions for them as well.
For example, Bollywood is pretty huge in India. You often see remakes of Hollywood films in India, full of dance numbers and other stuff designed to appeal to the local market. I think they recently did an Indian version of
The Godfather.
The reason I share your venom for it is because it ruins the artistic vision of the original film. And unfortunately, it seems that producers in North America believe that localized version in their region means dumbing it down.