It’s my personal opinion that films are the ultimate form of entertainment. Films are an hour or two (or three) of pure escapism, storytelling brought to life before our eyes, something we can see and hear, something we can experience. But lately — and lately meaning the past few years — I find myself experiencing the same things over and over again, like déjà vu.
It’s no secret that the movie industry is over-saturated with sequels and remakes. Heck, Spider-Man is being rebooted AGAIN only a couple years after the last one (which really makes you question how much Spider-Man is too much). But even more than just sequels and remakes, we’re also seeing a crazy amount of adaptations ("50 Shades of Grey" anyone?), from the adapting of novels to real life events. And certainly, some of these films are good, with reboots like "Mad Max: Fury Road" receiving critical acclaim, sequels like "Jurassic World" doing exceptionally well at the box office, and adaptations like "The Imitation Game" even receiving Oscar nominations. These are but a few examples, but the list goes on and on to show how, despite the often-made claim that they’re rather tired, the film industry believes that sequels, remakes, and adaptations are WORKING. And honestly, they’d very justifiably be right.
The obvious vacuum that exists in the industry, however, is the lack of original movies. Or I guess I should say, the lack of original good movies. The most recent original films I can think of are "Pixels" and "American Ultra," which both received poor reviews and didn’t do so well at the box office. So what about the original movies that are good? Well, let’s look at a film like "Pacific Rim", released in 2013. While it has its basis in sci-fi conventions of robots and giant monsters, the film itself is nevertheless an original conception, not taking its ideas from any one particular thing. The movie’s budget was $190 million, and only grossed $101.8 million in North America, while grossing approximately $411 million worldwide. The film was well-received, but as you can see, did not perform all that well in North America, making even less money there than the movie’s cost. To movie execs, this is not a good sign. So much so that progress on a sequel for "Pacific Rim" has been halted, and its future is up in the air.
The point is, the reason that original films don’t exist as a dominant force in lieu of sequels, remakes and adaptations is because of risk. Film studios can never be sure if an original film will do well or not, there’s no guarantee that people will like it. But if they make a sequel based on a movie that they know people loved, then there is that guarantee that people will see it because of that. There is some inherent profit there, while original films lie within uncertainty.
I consider myself a writer, I consider myself a creator, and it becomes hard to respect film, a medium that I dearly love, when its creative focus is on building on previous successes rather than trying to create its own success. There are exceptions to every rule, of course. For instance, "Birdman" won the Oscar for best film, and that is a truly original story, but films like "Birdman" are a rare breed. There is nothing inherently wrong with sequels or adaptations or revisiting stories to tell them in a new way, but to rely on them solely is a cop-out.
This is something that probably won’t change unless somehow the collective moviegoing audience riots over remakes and sequels, but that’s not something that I think will happen anytime soon. And I don’t have answers or solutions, which might make this article seem pointless, but I think presenting the flaws in the current state of the movie industry is something worth mentioning. In the meantime, I’ll be searching for those movies that spark my interest with something new and exciting.
