The truth about art and the world is that there really isn’t ever an original idea.
The ideas of today were inspired by the ideas of those who came before us, who were inspired by those who came before them, and before them, all the way back to the first caveman who was inspired by the wrath of a saber tooth tiger and decided to beat his cave mate with a stick. Revolutionary! Although we all inspire each other, modern Hollywood seems to constantly be less inspired, and just more lazy. Every time I go to the movies I always take note of how many trailers I see for a movie that’s either a sequel, a prequel, or a remake; and it seems to be more and more of the majority every time.
For a quick example, here’s a list of the main upcoming prequels/sequels/remakes: “Garfield,” “Twisters,” “A Quiet Place: Day One,” “Furiosa,” “Inside Out 2,” “Godzilla x Kong” (good Lord how many do we NEED?), “Beetlejuice, Beetlejuice,” “Despicable Me 4,” “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire,” “Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes” (title is ludicrous), and “Deadpool and Wolverine”.
No hate for the people working on these films; I understand that it’s a job that pays money, and I am actually excited for a handful of these films. But, whoever is pitching the ideas for these movies obviously is just looking for the quickest route to a high-budget movie with a guaranteed audience and profit.
Since these movies already have builtin fans who are viewing all the promotion, original movies being released tend to get left behind and under promoted, which can easily lead to the downfall of a deserving film. For example, there was a lot of hype around the time of December in 2022. Why? Well my sweet child, the long awaited sequel, “Avatar: The Way of Water” was about to be unleashed. Director James Cameron had been claiming to have a long chain of sequels on the way, but the claims were not proved until 13 years after the original film.
Since the movie came with a very excited and devoted fanbase, the promotion and anticipation seemed to be surrounding everything. So much so that “Babylon,” an $80 million film, got completely ignored and lost nearly $20 million at the box office. I remember seeing absolutely nothing of this movie except a trailer in theaters once or twice. On social media, no one seemed to be talking about it since the algorithm was so crowded with talk of Avatar, and those who did review it only seemed to have criticism for the money it wasted.
Although, everyone in my circle who saw it had nothing but good things to say, and just based off of elements such as costume design and original soundtrack, I am thoroughly impressed with what I’ve seen of the forgotten film. It’s hard to believe that such an expensive film with a star-studded cast was cast away into the cold, but the power of an eager pre-existing fan base can mean life or death for movies coming out at certain times.
Because prequels, sequels, and remakes come with dedicated and guaranteed audiences, these types of movies constantly get away with lazy writing and production. Nine times out of ten the plots are predictable, the CGI is abused, and a poor old actor gets dragged back into a franchise that they haven’t been interested in for decades (rest easy Harrison Ford, you’re free for now). While these movies might easily make back their money, that doesn’t mean the viewers were happy with what they saw. When the hype dust around these shallow productions settles, people tend to realize that they got gaslit by the media into thinking they were decent.
A recent example is the release of “Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire”. People love Ghostbusters, or at least our parents do; it’s a family-friendly classic with charming characters and questionable
80s CGI. It needs to be put to rest. After a few regrettable sequels, an all female-remake, and these two recently made sequels, I think this franchise has had more than enough additions; none of
them being good.
Although the newest addition to this worn down franchise earned a whopping 44 percent from Rotten Tomatoes, it somehow got 84 percent for an audience score. Hmm, wonder why? Because Hollywood is greedy and cheap and knows old fans will inevitably walk into a trap door of a movie just for oldtimes sake. Those stupid, bald, evil geniuses
