Taking a look back on the past few years, one can't help but notice that the more profitable and popular films are (for the most part) unoriginal. In 2002, five of the top ten highest grossing movies were sequels, prequels, or remakes. Similarly, last year six of the top ten were, and the trend continues.¹ This year has already seen Scooby Doo 2, Barbershop 2, Dawn Of The Dead, The Ladykillers, etc. Upcoming attractions this summer are Spider Man 2, and Harry Potter: Prisoner of Azkaban.

If we take into account the even newer trend of using TV shows, video games, and comic books for feature film use, the statistics are even more striking. So where is originality in Hollywood?

Because of these trends, the truly original screenwriters like Charlie Kaufman, Terry Gilliam, and David Lynch get tremendous followings. Previous talents like Tim Burton have made the popular transition to creating remakes, sequels, or prequels (Planet of the Apes, and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory). Peter Jackson, the famed director of The Lord of the Rings, was thought to yield potential until he agreed to film a remake of King Kong.

I conjecture that commercialism and greed make talented screenwriters succumb to these sloppy efforts. Take a second look at The Matrix trilogy. If it weren't for the Wachowski brothers being pressured to make a second and third film, the original would be forever untainted. However, we now have an original and highly successful film affected by the shoddy efforts which followed.

When did this all start? Back in 2000, only one of the top ten movies could be qualified as unoriginal; however, four of them later spawned sequels. Only seven came out of the top tens in 1997-99, but many others also had sequels to come. From 1960-1996, only four sequels were the highest grossing movie of the year.¹ So maybe the start of the 90's can be blamed for all this. An even more noticeable trend today is taking a successful action thriller dependant upon special effects and turning it into a trilogy or more (Alien, Terminator, Die Hard, Jurassic Park, and Jaws). Tracing this trend back, it can partly be blamed on the 1977 phenomenon Star Wars or even Star Trek, I suppose. But the real question is not when it started. It is: why is it happening? And when will it end? Does the future hold promise for those of us sick of seeing the same movies redone or duplicated?

Some efforts to end this reign of unoriginality have come from redoing movies from overseas. Although it may seem one and the same as remakes, we have to consider the current status of the movie industry as one in need of a gradual way out of this hole. I submit that this is a good first step. For instance, The Ring and Vanilla Sky were originally Japanese and Spanish respectively. However, sometimes the films from abroad bring prequels and sequels along with them. Desperado, for example, is the sequel to El Mariachi and the prequel to Once Upon A Time in Mexico. This brings us back to square one, and no progress is made. So are the attempts to fix this only temporary?

I can't honestly see a reason why Hollywood would improve from their current trend. Like many TV networks, Hollywood is stubborn in the way it uses the same formulas over and over again because the revenue and ratings say it works. Well, I don't know about you, but I'm pretty damn sick of reality shows as well as sitcoms about a guy and girl sharing an apartment in New York. If this is what we have to look forward to in movies for the next couple of years, I may have a breakdown.

Unlike me, the general public tends to like seeing old movies redone, cult classics spawn sequels, and old shows/videogames/comic books be made into film format. The dilemma is that many times what makes a film good is its fresh quality. Jurassic Park will be popular no matter how many sequels are made, but no matter how good a sequel might be, it can never surpass the original. The same can be argued for The Godfather.

Many consider the sequel just as good as the original; however, what the sequel doesn't have is that original quality to it. Redone movies may sometimes have better technological innovations, but the fact that the idea for the movie is the same puts it a step backwards. Even when Tim Burton remade Planet Of The Apes and tried to revamp the story, viewers weren't tricked into thinking it was original.

I suppose this dilemma is subjective in that it will always depend on who is looking at it. I would rather leave a highly original and successful movie alone than take the risk of putting it on the table for reproductions that could taint it.

Trevor Kupfer is a Showcase writer for the Spectator.

Footnotes:
1 boxofficereport.com