I’ve been writing this for years, (so accuse me for being repetitive) but the problem isn’t getting any better: Where is the originality among Hollywood movie studios? Just look at this past year’s Best Picture Oscar nominees: 6 of them were based on novels (including “War Horse”, which is also a play). Only three were based on original stories.
The Top 9 Movies of 2011 at the box office were all sequels, and #10 (“Thor”) was an adaptation of a comic book. The highest-grossing legitimate “original” movie from 2011 was “Bridesmaids”, which finished at #14.
And 2012 is shaping-up as more of the same: “21 Jump Street” is in theaters now and “The Hunger Games” will dominate starting next Friday. Still to come in the next few months are “Wrath of the Titans”, “Titanic 3D” another “American Pie” movie and “The Three Stooges”. There are only a few films I’m actually looking forward to this Summer that are based on new ideas. They include the animated “Brave”, the Will Ferrell/Zach Galifinakis political-satire comedy “The Campaign”, and Disney’s “The Odd Life of Timothy Green”.
The rest include “The Avengers”, “The Expendables 2”, a “Bourne” without Bourne, a “Men in Black” without a script, another “Wimpy Kid”, a fourth “Step Up”, a much bigger version of “Battleship”, and the end of Batman (yeah, right) .
As for the immediate future – sadly it also looks grim. Recently, Universal has announced a 3D re-release of “Jurassic Park” and (because of the success of “The Lorax”) a CGI animated version of “The Cat in the Hat” (the Mike Myers live-action film is only 9 years old).
Why are the studio relying on sequels, re-releases, remakes, reboots, adaptations of books, comic books, TV shows, Broadway shows, Snow White, and board games? MONEY, of course. Fresh content and critical acclaim don’t matter to studio execs. All they care about is the opening weekend box office totals. If a movie makes a lot of money, they have a “hit”. And the easiest way for that to happen (they believe) is to give the public a new version of an old, familiar product. And come Monday or Tuesday morning following that first big weekend they’re ready to greenlight a sequel.
But animation could come to the rescue this year with a good group of original projects. Yes, there are “Madagascar” and “Ice Age” sequels coming-out, but there’s also Aardman’s “The Pirates! Band of Misfits”, Pixar’s “Brave”, Disney’s “Wreck-It Ralph”, DreamWorks’ “Rise of the Guardians”, and a trio of Horror-themed films (Focus Feature’s “ParaNorman”, Sony’s “Hotel Transylvania” and Tim Burton’s “Frankenweenie”, which is a remake, but of his own movie).
And when I think of the some of the best animated films of recent years, movies such as “Despicable Me” and “Arthur Christmas” immediately come to mind. And what do they all have in common? Originality!
Will this copycat trend ever come to an end? Not completely. But it would be great if studio, writers and director of live-action films need to start delivering some new, original content…and fast, because frankly, it’s getting boring.