The magic of movies is all about making people feel something. Cinema is an art form, used to express the human experience. People go to the movies to enjoy themselves, be entertained, or to escape their current reality.
But lately I’ve noticed an alarming trend, and that is the lack of original films made this year. A great deal of movies coming out this year feel lazy.
Some may get the feeling that the majority of studios have shifted their focus to only their bottom line, where they’ve lost their creative spark. First, I’ll establish what ‘unoriginal films’ means. It is anything that is based on prior material, whether it’s a prequel, sequel, remake, reboot, live action, or adaptation.
An Alarming Trend
Whenever I see trailers in the movie theater, there is an overwhelming amount of remakes shown, but few original stories. You could blame it on the fact that original movies can be somewhat ‘underground’; meaning they are smaller lower budget films, and large audiences only want to see what they’re familiar with.
The big corporations know what the public will watch, so they mostly put out movies that they know will do well in the box office. Although I do think this is partially true, I think even the big corporations in the industry used to make many original films. According the CJ Stallworth, “the percentage of original films dropped from 40.9% in 2000 and is now 18.6% in 2024, while the percentage of non-original films rose from 59.1% to 81.4%.”
Original movies bring fresh ideas to an audience, while remakes rely on pre-existing materials. The former excites creativity, while the latter is repetitive. Fun fact, when I started writing this article, the top 8 movies of 2024 were based on previous material. It’s been about 2 months, and it is now in the top 15!
There are times when I understand bringing back old movies and recreating them. For example, “Dune”. The original “Dune” movie was made in 1984. People wanted to recreate this movie because they thought it wasn’t a true adaptation of the original book, and the technology wasn’t as advanced in the 80’s as it is now. So they made “Dune” (2021) and “Dune: Part two” (2024). But the times I don’t feel it is appropriate to make a remake/sequel is when the story is already complete.
Balancing Old and New
Another argument to this point would be that there isn’t a lack of original content; it is just not making nearly as much money as the remakes. Hollywood decides out of thousands of original scripts that only a few will make the big screen.
I do understand that people like to hear old stories with a modern twist, in fact, I enjoy those types of films. But I think it’s important to keep a balance.There’s nothing wrong with bringing audiences nostalgia with a familiar story, but it is crucial that we also have new ideas that show our modern day.
The Need for Fresh Narratives
There are many reasons for this phenomenon, such as competing with streaming platforms, global appeal of established brands, consumer preferences. But if this keeps carrying on, we will just have the same films remade over and over. We need movies that represent our current timeline, not just remakes of older times. We should have to look back on films from 2024 that represent this year, not the past. Hollywood, please take the risk and make more original films.