What is going on with Hollywood?

[Lozjam]

Have you guys noticed that almost every movie is following a specific trend? Movies nowadays are either reboots, sequels, or based on books/other media.

I mean just look at what big movies we have been getting and what is coming in the future

Star Wars Episode Vll for example, was absolutely fantastic. But it was a sequel/reboot of the series. There is nothing wrong with rebooting dead series, but I just think it has been too much.
We have had other reboots/sequels such as the Jungle Book, Pan, Terminator, Jurassic World, Furious 7, Batman vs. Superman(which is a reboot of the DCCU), Civil War, Fantastic 4, Age of Ultron. We have so many more coming along the line as well, with X-Men, The Legend of Tarzan, Ghostbusters(pukes), Independence Day Resurgence, Alice through the looking glass, Finding Dory, Star Trek, TMNT, Rogue One, Ice Age, Fantastic Beasts, and many others.

I'm not saying sequels and reboots are not good when done right. But does anyone feel that Hollywood cannot find any good new ideas anymore? The Game Industry is facing the same fate, I know. However, I think its insane just how much there is nowadays. Do you guys feel that Hollywood has been unoriginal as of late?

 

[Emma]

Honestly, I don't see the problem with sequels. I love sequels. I want there to be more sequels to everything. Provided it can make sense in the story. For instance, Armageddon doesn't make sense for a sequel but a movie with the same premise that was released the same year. Deep Impact left things slightly unresolved in the end because they didn't stop it as effectively as they did in Armageddon. That's why I like the upcoming sequel for Independence Day, at first glance it felt like a one-off film not open to sequels. However, it never made sense that an entire alien civilization would pack themselves on one ship and try to consume the resources of just one planet. The sequel retcons that original statement so that the aliens actually have a much larger civilization and the invasion in the first film was not as big of a deal to them as it was to us. Instead, they do it all the time, taking over planets for their resources is a typical Tuesday for them, which makes the effort much more plausible if it's just one ship among many.

I also love adaptations. I love seeing books or games adapted into a film. I don't believe that it's a violation to bring it to another medium. We have novelizations of films all the time and no one claims those are offensive. Why should it the other way around?

Reboots, those I think are overdone. But they are sometimes necessary. Like, Terminator. But I actually think Terminator did a reboot the way you should. The series was in decline and its previous film was a complete disaster. And instead of just wiping out the previous canon completely, they made an alternate timeline and actually depicted it being formed right in front of our eyes instead of having it happen before the film started. That was a good way to do it. I realize Star Trek did this too, however, that franchise absolutely didn't need a reboot and if they did a hard reboot it would have been a disaster. Instead, they're in an alternate timeline and everything else still exists and Abrams even said that there's nothing stopping Paramount from making new material for the TNG era in that same continuity if they wanted to.

Honestly, purely original entertainment ideas don't exist. It's always based on something, inspired by something. There are only a few kinds of stories we actually like. So everything will be a variation on a theme. The most common one being the hero's journey. Everything we think of original really was strongly influenced by something else. I think people should stop fussing about it and enjoy themselves more.

 

[DekuNut]

I know exactly what's going on
I'll tell you a secret
People are more likely to go see a movie for a property they're already aware of. If you were given the choice between a Batman movie and an original superhero flick, most people would choose Batman every time. Why? Because they know Batman. They enjoy Batman. You have the choice between something you know and have seen done well before or a mystery that could turn out being good or bad. Be honest, which would you choose?
While I agree that reboots/remakes are a bit overdone (because we needed a remake of Wicker Man, one of the best horror films of all time, starring Nic Cage, right?), I don't mind sequels or adaptations for the most part. I'm glad the Razzies picked up on this trend enough to create the "worst sequel, reboot, or adaptation" award though.
Also, I'm just gonna say, I know you've had that siggy forever Matt, but for some reason it just hypnotized me today.

 

[Lozjam]

I know exactly what's going on
I'll tell you a secret
People are more likely to go see a movie for a property they're already aware of. If you were given the choice between a Batman movie and an original superhero flick, most people would choose Batman every time. Why? Because they know Batman. They enjoy Batman. You have the choice between something you know and have seen done well before or a mystery that could turn out being good or bad. Be honest, which would you choose?
While I agree that reboots/remakes are a bit overdone (because we needed a remake of Wicker Man, one of the best horror films of all time, starring Nic Cage, right?), I don't mind sequels or adaptations for the most part. I'm glad the Razzies picked up on this trend enough to create the "worst sequel, reboot, or adaptation" award though.
Also, I'm just gonna say, I know you've had that siggy forever Matt, but for some reason it just hypnotized me today.

That's true to an extent. However, that's not all the way true.
Look at Disney. New franchises such as Frozen, Zootopia, Wreck it Ralph, and Inside Out kicked some serious ass in the movie market, and it sold millions more box office seats than Batman vs. Superman. This shows in itself that big movie companies can take the risk and succeed with flying colors. Sure, you could say that this is just "about Disney being big". However, many other movie companies can rival Disney when they try, and then it just works. Ant-Man does not have the "Disney Stigma"(even though it was made by Disney), yet it still sold more in the Box office than Batman despite Ant-Man being extremely obscure at the time. Especially compared to Batman and Superman combined.

 

[DekuNut]

That's true to an extent. However, that's not all the way true.
Look at Disney. New franchises such as Frozen, Zootopia, Wreck it Ralph, and Inside Out kicked some serious ass in the movie market, and it sold millions more box office seats than Batman vs. Superman. This shows in itself that big movie companies can take the risk and succeed with flying colors. Sure, you could say that this is just "about Disney being big". However, many other movie companies can rival Disney when they try, and then it just works. Ant-Man does not have the "Disney Stigma"(even though it was made by Disney), yet it still sold more in the Box office than Batman despite Ant-Man being extremely obscure at the time. Especially compared to Batman and Superman combined.

Ant-Man was obscure, but the MCU isn't. The MCU is probably the single largest movie series out there right now. So that explains Ant-Man.
As for the Disney thing, yes, I know that they can. However, they don't want to risk it. They want what's going to get them money. So Disney will keep making Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, and Pixar movies, because they're guaranteed blockbusters and are guaranteed to make their money back, whether they're good or not.

 

[Ventus]

The talent isn't there anymore; Hollywood has gone full-blown "we want the $$$ market". They don't care about the soul of the media, just about the profits. And sequels/reboots are the easiest way to cash in.

 

[Djinn]

Due to lowering sales most companies are not willing to take any chances or ricks whatsoever. So their playing safe is always releasing things that are well known or have a strong familiar name behind them. That's why you see a lot of sequels and remakes of movies made 20-30 years ago. They want the name recognition first before anything else.

 

[Dio]

Sequels sell as people like a known brand. As for originality in Hollywood, we're not going to see much that hasn't been done already in film before because most things have and all new stuff will be inspired by the old.

 

[Dan]

Hollywood is in the same position as the video game industry. It got too big and now has to play it safe. Brand reignition brings in those numbers even if it is a terrible movie and looks terrible in the trailers.
That's why you get movies like Tetris which probably won't have any element of Tetris within it but hey it's a name people recognise.

Disney and Pixar are an exception because they have their name behind the movie, but even then their movies usually follow the same formula we've seen time and time again.

 

[Stitch]

Hollywood has sequelized, remade, rebooted, and crossed-over since the very beginning. The only major thing that has changed is the amount of movies being made. It is just that much more noticeable now.

 

[Squirrel]

I just want to let everyone know since no one seems to have said it yet that the film industry as a whole still releases many more original films every year than reboots, sequels, and movies based off other works. You just don't see them because generally, stuff like Captain America has a bigger budget and therefore more money to put into marketing. It's really our fault that we don't go out and see the other movies. They're there, but since no one saw a trailer for them, we don't watch them. And this isn't a new thing, either. I think after the success of the MCU, things have shifted slightly, but viewers have always gone to see a movie that they saw the trailer for and were already familiar with over an original film.

I also just looked up 2015 films and just looked at the Google auto-thingamajigger at the top.
It's about 2 to 1 non-original films to original. But that actually sounds pretty good considering that the movies displayed are probably just the ones that are searched most often.

Anyway I just wanted to state the counter-argument

 

[Misty]

Yeah, I've always found the complaints about rebooting based on not enough original stuff to be misleading. It's like saying that the only books written are YA ****e. Like, yes, a lot of those books are written, but it seems likely you haven't looked around very much. If you aren't looking for it, you kinda deserve hollywood.

If the issue that most of these reboots are bad, then that's a legitimate complaint. I personally dislike well-done works getting the reboot. It isn't almost ever more of a good thing...it just waters a good thing down further and asks me if I'll still drink it.

But, that isn't to say I don't believe a reboot could be a good thing...it just never is, usually because it can never just be new, it has to spend half the movie looking back at the other thing saying "wasn't this awesome? Didn't you really like this?"