Too many Sequels and Remakes!!!! And It’s all Your Fault

Hello

Hope you are well.

I’ve been thinking. After the screening for Earth to Echo it smacked me in the face that lately even the “original” movies have a tendency to regurgitate ideas almost as bad as the standard sequel or remake.

Save for the work of some fringe director’s (that sadly few seek out) we are eating our own tail. Rinse, wash, repeat. Because it sure does feel like everything out is the standard re-structured  sameness.

But what is the reality? What do the numbers say? Is everything released upon us in our favorite neighborhood multiplex nothing but remakes and sequels or sequels to remakes?

I pulled numbers. Let’s see what we got:

I focused on wide released films here in the States.  Nothing too narrow though; the smallest film on the list opened in 600 theaters (The Railway Man– Not a sequel or remake. And no one saw it.)

I focused on the first half of 2014. Films released January 1 to July 2:

Total Released                  Sequels                                                Remakes

         69                                       13                                           10     

EXACTLY A THIRD (33.33333%) OF ALL WIDE RELEASED MOVIES HAS EITHER BEEN A SEQUEL OR A REMAKE IN 2014!!!!

That explains the sneaking suspicion that something is wrong. It also points some focus on the repetitive dreamlike quality of sitting through the majority of this repetition. Repetition.

And I’m not even counting flicks like Noah and Son of God although versions of those stories have been told before. No, I did not count Earth to Echo as an E.T. remake but there are grounds there to constitute such a move.

And it didn’t always used to be this way.

Back 30 years ago in 1984, they made original movies more often than not.

1984 looks like this:

Total Released                  Sequels                                                Remakes

        160                                     11                                            4        

That’s about 9% of all wide releases that ENTIRE YEAR were sequels and remakes. And the sequels that year featured The Muppets, Indiana Jones, Dirty Harry and Kirk and Spock.  So those get a pass.

Another interesting note: 1984 saw the release of A Nightmare on Elm Street, Police Academy and Revenge of the Nerds. Those three alone spawned 16 sequels and a remake. Maybe 1984 is the epicenter of the entire problem? I shall conduct some more digging….

But one final thought to stick in your craw: I believe the problem lies with us (the audience) and not them (The filthy Hollywood Execs). The Dumbing Down is happening because we are lining up around the block to see live action cartoons based on action figures. We are stuck on nostalgia and go back to these childhood toys even though we are all growned up and have kids going to college. Why are men over 40 buying up all the new Playstation 4’s?

Here we are halfway through a year where one third of our options are sequels and remakes and what do we flock too…..?

From Box Office Mojo 2014 Top Ten Domestic Films as of 7/5/14:

Seven out of the top ten are either sequels or remakes. Or in the case of 22 Jump Street, a sequel to a remake. These are the films we support. And giving Transformers 4 an A- Cinemascore is not going to help matters.

And we still have this entire list of lovely cinema to look forward to by year’s end:

Have we gotten to the point that familiarity is really that important? Do we only feel comfortable plopping down $16 a ticket when we think we know what we are getting? Is there a security in knowing that the Big Mac is going to taste like a Big Mac each and every time?

And the sad thing is I can’t wait for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes. I’m a Pod Person too.

I’m going to keep digging and see if I can find “The Shift”. Maybe there are some answers there.

What I do believe is that when viewed as a whole, our entertainment is getting boring. Lazy and less intelligent. And I fear if we continue to devolve, we’ll eventually be drooling in the dark watching the same 6 seconds of exploding robots loop off into eternity.