It has become increasingly apparent that Hollywood is running low on original ideas. Between reboots, sequels, franchise films, and adaptations, Hollywood isn’t producing original content. These movies aren’t necessarily poorly produced or directed, but they lack creativity. Out of the top 10 grossing movies in the last decade, only "Avatar" and "Finding Nemo" were not franchise films or reboots.
" Star Wars Episode VII" is nearly here, and it will inevitably have box office success. The "Star Wars" franchise captures the attention of several generations and has continued to stay relevant with cartoon series, books, and merchandise. This is perhaps the most popular franchise of all time. With Disney taking on the project, hopefully, the true nature and concept of "Star Wars" is conserved as best as possible. The original trilogy seems incomparable to the first three episodes, so hopefully this movie doesn’t spoil the series.
The "Star Wars" movies themselves paved the way for other series to follow like "Harry Potter" and "Lord of the Rings." Both of these series were adapted from novels, which makes the writing process a lot easier. The unfortunate part about these movies is that not all of them are well made, but if they’re bad, they’ll still make a profit. Hollywood has become more about hiring big name actors and directors, and taking a previously successful story and making it a movie. The branding of names like "Star Wars," "Harry Potter," and "Lord of the Rings" are well-known and the movies give fans even more of a reason to buy into it. Even when movies in a series fail like "Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides and Transformers: Age of Extinction,"fans still have the satisfaction of the originals.
Another problem is that there are less standalone movies. If a movie is successful, it’s almost guaranteed to get a sequel even if it was supposed to have a definite ending. This trend has been around for a while. "The Godfather" and "Jaws" both had sequels. "The Godfather II" was much better than "Jaws II," but both movies made a profit and that’s what Hollywood cares about the most. "Godfather III" and "Jaws III" and IV were all awful, even though "The Godfather" and "Jaws" were both iconic movies. Another problem is reboots. Often, reboots will bring an old concept to a new generation, but the Spiderman movies were rebooted for a completely different reason: to make money. Superhero movies are just another example of movies made based on previously existing material. There are multiple Avengers, Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, and X-Men movies because there is such an abundance of stories to write movies about.
With these things considered, the idea of a writer composing an original screenplay seems risky. If movies are made based on previously existing stories, shouldn’t writers focus their efforts on making a book or graphic novel? If an author’s work becomes popular in another medium it has the potential to be made into a movie. It’s rather unfortunate that this trend continues to occur, but when money is the motive, quality is less of a priority. Movies don’t have to be good to make money anymore.
