Why is everything a sequel, reboot or remake?

So I thought The Creator was brilliant. I watched it in the cinema, thoroughly enjoyed it and was gobsmacked when I learned it's budget was only $79 million. It looks better than some films I've seen that cost three times that.

But apparently, while it may make that back, it's unlikely to even earn $100 million globally.

So the answer to the question of why Hollywood churns out the same shite over and over is that, currently, tragically, that is what the masses want to spend their money on.

And that makes me sad.

vettnerk,

As much as I was fed up with “Batman: Hulks Revenge - Infinity Multiverse Edition, a Groot and Thanos Love Story” ten years ago, I can’t deny that they’re popular titles. I just hope that movie makers will shift back to originality at some point.

But for now, due to the shift in how media is consumed, they’re unlikely to go for anything that is not a safe choice, which sadly means that they’ll stick to sequels or renoots of established brands.

anonionfinelyminced,
anonionfinelyminced avatar

Simpsons/Star Wars crossover-plus-reboot when?

quantenzitrone,

The Creator was fucking horrible

It’s a movie about racism. The so called “AI” are literally Humans with holes in their neck. The whole AI thingy is just clickbait, because AI is THE bait topic nowadays. The is no moral dilemma in racism. Furthermore, literally everything in the movie was made too look or sound cool without giving any second thought to it.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Nothing about the “AI” made in any way sense: >!If they are persecuted by the Americans, why don’t they add synthetic skin on their neck? Who would create synthetic humans without changing anything except a hole in the neck? Better eyes so they are not blinded by smoke bombs? Efficient communication and data transfer? Stronger limbs? Why should they continue human religious tradition? Why should they sleep? How does this child “AI” grow? How does this child control any machine? What is even considered a machine? Has it just telekinesis?!<

Nothing about the big fucking floating ship made any sense: >!Why are they above every place in new asia at the same time? Why do they need to, if they can just fire their rockets from anywhere anyway (proof: end of the movie)? Why do they use BLUE LIGHT to warn their targets before shooting (same with the tanks)? Why can’t the rockets fly autonomously? Why are the “AIs” running towards a huge falling metal ship meteor at the end? Why doesn’t the landing produce a shockwave?!<

Other stuff didn’t make any sense either: >!If can they revive humans in synthetic human bodies, why does being dead for longer limit this to a few seconds with full capabilities, instead of resulting in a half brain-dead human? Why do they produce bombs that warn the victims by beeping before exploding? Why don’t the AIs that capture the MC just take away the MCs prosthesis so he can’t do shit?!<

2/10, because the animals were cute and funny.

TokyoCalling,

Not everything is a sequel, reboot or remake.

Every week, original films are released. Most lack money for advertising and are commercial failures. If we wish to see more films like them made, we need to see them - preferably with people who wouldn’t otherwise have, and spread the news about them in person or Lemmy or whatever you wish.

Or you could just wait. The movie industry has gone through this many times.

sebinspace,

Most lack money for advertising and are commercial failures

A24’s strategy in a nutshell.

Number1SummerJam,
@Number1SummerJam@lemmy.world avatar

media.tenor.com/sqOZZnRhjMsAAAAC/money-mr.gif

Resol,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

I still have yet to figure out why nobody does remakes like HeartGold and SoulSilver anymore.

Moneo,

Can you elaborate for me.

Resol,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

These are considered to be the best Pokémon remakes of all time, which were released in 2009 (approximately 10 years after the original Gold and Silver releases for the Game Boy)

When I look at modern remakes of films, video games, sometimes even TV shows, it just seems that all the magic is somehow sucked out of it. I never understood why.

lorez,

Cos Nintendo really cares about its IPs. It probably thinks ahead. Modern executives don’t. It’s all about the now. That’s why we have broken big budget games that make a lot of money with preorders and underdeliver.

Resol,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

I’ve seen people talk shit about modern Nintendo games as well. Some people even referred to Scarlet and Violet as a “buggy mess”. I’m probably guessing they’re playing Red and Green (the first Japanese release of the series) instead.

lorez,

Well, you can’t appeal to everybody but recent Nintendo games are great according to the average opinion. Mine included :)

Resol,
@Resol@lemmy.world avatar

Good for you

I never played them so I can’t have an opinion on them

weew,

movies, at the most fundamental level, are investments.

Before anything else can happen, somebody needs to put up the money, often hitting nine digit figures, to get it made.

They want to get their money back. They want sure bets.

If it isn’t going to be a sequel, it had better carry some powerful names like Tom Cruise or Christopher Nolan or Margot Robbie + Ryan Gosling

MargotRobbie, (edited )
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

Yay for being a powerful name!

Also, too add to this, I don’t think big names really have that much of an effect any more. Both “Amsterdam” and “Babylon” were filled with big names, yet neither of them did very well in theaters.

Maybe the “death of the movie star” is true after all, and I don’t think Hollywood knows how to deal with it.

_apokalipto_,

Amsterdam was brilliant, I really liked that film.

pachrist,

It’s important to note that the same is essentially true for theater goers. As a viewer, I am investing my time and money in a movie experience. With tickets being $15+, a theater date can easily cost $50. When a trip to the theater costs that much, I sure as hell don’t go every other weekend, and I definitely don’t want to see something batting 57% on Rotten Tomatoes.

So it ends up being a vicious cycle where studios only greenlight established IP or “surefire” bets and viewers only see the big hits. I don’t know anyone anymore who just casually goes to the theater because it’s so expensive, so in turn, casual movies have died. The only thing I can think of that’s weathered this are genres with dedicated fan bases, like horror.

Walking out of an unsatisfying, crap movie after dropping $50 hurts, and staying at home is the easiest way to avoid it.

MargotRobbie,
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

Risk.

The thinking is if an idea worked the first time, people will want more of it, so it’s going to work the second time too.

Plus, it’s way easier to get people working together on a project when everybody had already worked together before.

SharkAttak,
SharkAttak avatar

A movie about Risk, the tabletop game, you say?

jordanlund,
@jordanlund@lemmy.world avatar

The top 2 movies this year were not sequels, reboots, or remakes:

www.boxofficemojo.com/year/2023/?ref_=bo_yl_table…

1 Barbie $635,171,975

2 The Super Mario Bros. Movie $574,934,330

2 more in the top 10:

5 Oppenheimer $323,715,325

10 Sound of Freedom $184,038,874

So 4 out of the top 10, including the top 2 are new to film.

Not bad… The reason the Creator didn’t do well is that it’s apparently not very good:

www.rottentomatoes.com/m/the_creator_2023

KeenFlame,

Bad

32b99410_da5b,

Super Mario Bros (1993) imdb.com/title/tt0108255/

Super Mario Bros (2023) imdb.com/title/tt6718170/

MargotRobbie, (edited )
@MargotRobbie@lemmy.world avatar

Of course, there is an inevitable sequel coming to one of these movies…

weew,

While Barbie and Mario aren’t sequels, they are very much banking on the fact that they are extremely well established brands worldwide.

Oppenheimer has Christopher Nolan’s name.

In the end it’s all about branding and marketing. Sequel are easy to market, as well as other well known brands, and superstar directors or actors.

The Sound of Freedom is genuinely a rare surprise.

dustyData,

Here’s another essay about this by Patrick (H) Willems. It touches on other factors as the risk adverseness of theaters and producers. The death of the movie star, the high costs of CGI, the devalue of the cinema experience by way of Netflix straight to stream content, the rise of streaming in general, profiteering by executives, the raise in TV series budget, etc.

But quite pointedly, it touches on the fact that audiences have been trained for decades now to stay at home and not to request higher quality media. The emotional experience of “going out” to the movie theater, spending the evening engaging with an unknown novel narrative, trusting the director and the publisher to keep you entertained for a couple of hours is all gone. Mass marketing media has made it so that this experience is not possible anymore, so people have stopped requesting it. People only invest on blockbuster, $200MM+ mega productions. So they go to the theaters once or twice every year for those mega events. But people no longer go any random weekend to a theater just to see something that’s being played there regardless of mass marketing. It would take years to retrain audiences that such an offering exists and that they don’t have to hunt on streaming services or pirate movies just to emulate that random Saturday evening experience at home.

A_Random_Idiot,

Big reason is because people keep buying it.

Lesser reason is that these companies are risk averse, and would rather spend 500 million risking a flop on a remake of somethign that has an existing base, than spend 10million to support something new, unique and creative.

WarmSoda,

None of this is new. Remakes have been a thing for at least a hundred years.

Every few years someone reaches an age where they notice it and we get another OP asking the same question that’s been asked countless times.

TheMongoose,

we get another OP asking the same question that’s been asked countless times.

I mean, I did answer the question in the post. I'm just sad because people complain that we don't get enough new stuff, but when that new stuff comes out, they don't go and see it. I can't blame Hollywood for playing it safe, when it doesn't pay off when they don't.

WarmSoda,

Oh definitely. I agree with you.
It’s like complaining about the weather though.

the_q,

Because it’s cheap and people keep buying.

HubertManne,
HubertManne avatar

Part of it for me is im not paying for anything anymore. Avengers endgame was like the last thing I bought and that was mostly just wanting to finish off the story. To much rehashing and to much individual little streaming fifedoms and such.

kandoh,

People want the familiar. That’s why mom & pop stores lost out to chain retailers, why your dad just wants to go to chilies again instead of trying out that new place that just opened.

BeigeAgenda,
@BeigeAgenda@lemmy.ca avatar

For various reasons I have mainly moved from watching movies/series to audio books, one plus is that there are way more books available than movies, and most of the time the book is better than the movie. Its also much easier to read a book in many parts, compared to watching a movie in parts.

gusgalarnyk,

I swear the creator dialogue has got to have some amount of advertisment mixed in with real people because the biggest compliment I see everywhere is that the movie looks expensive but cost very little.

I saw it. It was gorgeous. The art direction was wonderful. But that was about everything positive I have to say about it.

The world building was atrocious, the plot was trope heavy, the sound design was serviceable but not many sounds stood out, I couldn’t find an impactful or nuanced message, the pacing was a rubber band, and the individual challenges were boring.

I love original content, and quite frankly I feel like there’s enough of them every year to not be heart broken everytime a bad original film doesn’t make a stellar return. I’m kinda tired of the “where new IP” discussion though.

Of course I wish there were more big budget independent films but right now the problem seems to be big budget films in general to me. More often than not they hit like duds, but they’re built on good will and that’s all it takes to get me to return to the first dud.

Idk, Creator sucked and it hurts to say because I want new, great, and scifi worlds coming to the theater every year but the Creator isn’t good simply because it’s new and that doesn’t meant new IPs are “hard for the masses” to understand/appreciate/turn-out-for.

burgersc12,

I liked the Creator, I like how they portayed the US, not many movies turn the US into the bad guys, and irredeemable war-mongers at that.

gusgalarnyk,

I mean sure, I enjoy the US as bad guys too. But they were cartoonish, one-note, and their decisions made no sense. I mean the whole premise, as executed, didn’t make any sense.

The US’s war winning weapon was… Guided missiles; that they used to strike the enemy indiscriminately and generally didn’t really care where they landed? They were afraid of AI because they hooked it up sky net style and it nuked LA, but later on that’s revealed to be a human’s fault? They supposedly hate AI but they use what seemed to be low level AI running robot bombs to attack the enemy? Their soldiers were happy to kill a dog to get the access to the secret base and cut off the face of an enemy to bypass a door but they’re shown to have hacking devices for doors and in this hightech world we’re supposed to believe they can’t find a metal hatch in the ground going to a fuckin mass production factory?

The main antagonist to the US is… A father/daughter pair who make AI in seemingly their free time? Not the actual factories or research facilities with hundreds of scientists but the pregnant “god” creator who’s trying to raise a kid with her husband on the beach.

Idk man. Slap a big US Army on the tanks that are destroying a village to kill a kid and that’s an evocative painting, a real striking visual I guess. But a good 2.5 hour movie that does not make.

burgersc12,

I never said it made sense lol, but i enjoyed it for what it was

gusgalarnyk,

Well don’t let me down play what you enjoyed. I’m happy you got your money’s worth and had fun.

It was worth it for me on these discussions alone, not even mentioning the beautiful visuals.

Wahots,
@Wahots@pawb.social avatar

It was an OK movie, but there were a number of strange plot holes and other inconsistencies that made the movie puzzling or that needed to be fleshed out better. It felt in 6 like it was trying to be Avatar, using the new gen starwars people to explain it.

I always welcome new movies though. Really getting sick of scooby-doo like superhero movies and COD-likes like John Wick, mission impossible, James bond and many others.

The plots are predictable, wrap themselves neatly up in 2 hours, have the main hero always survive automatic fire, and somehow have rebuilt NYC 33 times in the past 30 cinematic universe films. And somehow a new bad guy always has raised billions + a star base/private island that must be destroyed.

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