The Problem with Hollywood

    “It’s unoriginal,” “Why are they remaking that,” or “Do we need another sequel?”

    Those are the common themes of the complaints when a new movie is announced based on an existing material. That all Hollywood can make is sequels and remakes to things we already have. These critics claim all they want is an original movie. But that’s not what the problem we face is about. 

    Yes, a majority of the movies made today are based on existing material, but the problem is most of those are done to make a quick buck. Studios are banking on the love audiences have for the source material or preceding films to make as much or more money this time around. 

    What is missing is that most films are not being made with any artistic integrity or passion, original ideas or not. 

Recently, comic book movies have suffered both at the box office and with critics. Audiences are tired of the same, safe stories being told with different characters just to “build a cinematic universe.” 

    And that was the fear for the 2022 reboot of, The Batman. When the film was released it was met with praise from critics. 

    According to rogerebert.com , “This is a Batman movie that’s aware of its own place within pop culture, but not in a winking, meta fashion; rather, it acknowledges the comic book character’s lore, only to examine it and reinvent it in a way that’s both substantial and daring.”

    The Batman didn’t hit the same beats as a standard comic book movie, and would better be characterized as a murder mystery that featured the caped crusader. With the film trying to push the limits of what a Batman film can be, audiences came out to see that limit. Making $771 million in its theatrical run and the seventh highest grossing movie of the year.

    Remakes and reboots aren’t the only films that benefit from making themselves feel like a step forward. In 2023, one of the biggest films of the year is based on a biography of a scientist. 

    Oppenheimer, is largely a film with people talking in rooms about extremely complex science topics, with a court drama weaving through it. Yet, the film made over $960 million in its worldwide theatrical run. 

    “Moviegoers worldwide responded to the film’s scale of spectacle and the depth of its reckoning with the same, enacted by a uniformly strong ensemble cast gathering A-listers around the father of the atomic bomb,” according to The Guardian. 

    The film doesn’t just tell the life of J. Robert Oppenhiemer, it shows the most critical time in his life as well as his moral conundrums with building a nuclear bomb and what it could mean for our world. 

    March saw the widely anticipated release of Dune: Part 2, the sequel to the 2021 film, Dune. Based on a book of the same name by Frank Herbert, multiple directors have tried and failed to capture this book on film. But in the sequel’s opening weekend it grossed $178 million worldwide, with the film’s budget being $190 million. 

    These films could have fallen victim to the other iterations of Herbert’s story, but director Denis Villeneuve was never going to let that happen. Storyboarding the film when he was a teenager, Villeneuve wanted to bring the world of Dune and its many planets to life, and to make them feel as real as possible. 

    “The world(s) of Dune feel fully lived in, realized and authentic,” according to Medium. “They are immersive because of that level of detailed storytelling. The characters all come to life because they are allowed a level of complexity that is rarely given to characters in an ensemble film such as this one.”

    But even as films like these succeed, audiences will still say they want something original, but just as these films proved, people crave to see someone’s passion. 

    “People will want to go to it because you're passionate about it, and people love what other people are passionate about,” said Emma Stone in La La Land.