Unoriginality at the multiplex: Franchises are the New "Genres"

Here are some broad trends. I've categorized the top 10 grossing films of several years.

1980: 6 of 10 original, 2 sequels, 2 based on books
1985: 6 original, 2 sequels, 2 based on books
1990: 7 originals, 1 sequel, 2 based on comic books
1995: 5 originals, 4 sequels, 1 based on comic book/cartoon
2000: 7 originals, 1 sequel, 2 based on comic book/cartoon

No interesting trends there. People liked to talk about how Hollywood was infected with "sequelitis," but the numbers don't indicate any significant movement in that direction during those 2 decades. Then something happens in the last decade:

2001: 3 originals, 3 sequels, 2 based on books, 2 remakes
2002: 3 originals, 5 sequels, 1 based on comic book, 1 based on popular musical
2003: 3 originals, 6 sequels, 1 remake
2004: 3 originals, 5 sequels, 2 based on books
2005: 2 originals, 2 sequels, 1 based on book, 4 remakes/reboots
2006: 3 originals, 3 sequels, 1 based on book, 3 remake/reboot
2007: 0 originals!, 6 sequels, 3 based on comic book/cartoon, 1 remake
2008: 3 original, 4 sequels, 2 based on comic book/cartoon, 1 based on book

In many cases, the sequels were sequels of movies that were based on existing properties.

Of course, this is a reflection of what people want to see and what they are presented with. Whether its one or the other is, for the point I'm making, beside the point. I'm claiming that this is not a temporary trend. This is cinema (creators and consumers) obeying a fundamental law of economy. There are other media in which producers can distribute motion pictures to consumers (namely cable TV and the internet). They can also share stories via books, as always. Now, if you were a bank and you were going to fund a major motion picture, which cost 10s of millions of create, distribute, and promote, you would want to be as sure as you could be that the movie would be a hit. An established star is one way to bolster your odds, as is a director or writer with a proven track record of hits. But what about the story or the premise. Ideally, you'd want to be able to test it out for a smaller sum of money. And that's what we're able to do now. When you make a film out of an existing property, be it a cartoon, a novel, or an older film, you attract an audience who believes the film will be similar to the existing property and you have evidence that the story or the premise will resonate w/ people.

Its a little odd that it didn't happen sooner. Why weren't all movies tried as novels first? Maybe b/c some stories would only work on the big screen as spectacle. But now, with the internet and lots more TV channels, you would have to be a bit daft to bankroll an unproven story as a film. Why not make it into a miniseries on TNT or a novel first, see how it does, and retain the motion picture rights?

I would suppose that many cinephiles lament the lack of originality in mainstream cinema (if they care anymore about anythign "mainstream" that is). But are these remakes, reboots and sequels really any less original? Do we judge originality by a title? Couldn't a non-sequel thriller be less original (that is, more similar to its predecessors) than a sequel? I think that this is possible and has been the case in some instances. Really, franchises are the new genres: boundaries within which various artists work.

What to do with CGI films? Are they a genre? There are two companies that dominate - Pixar and Dreamworks. They employ many of the same creative people, use a lot of the same dramatic tropes. More importantly, I feel like audiences treat them more like a series of films and less like a genre. In terms of number and "quality," they are more like movies in a series than films in a genre: there are few and they are of uniform quality.

This is just the top slice of cinema, too. There are plenty of "original" stories lower down the charts, though again, I would question the idea of original. There has evolved a horribly formulaic strain of indie film that, I would argue, are, as a group, no more original by any definition of that term than the bulk of franchise films.

We needn't lament the fact that more hit films aren't fantastically original, the way they were, say, the in 70's. There are still great, original stories being told using moving pictures, but they aren't being told on the big screen. This is what should happen, economically speaking. Cinema no longer holds the same place it did 30 or 40 years ago when it was, essentially, the only place to go for amazing, engaging stories. Once the internet ramps up as a distribution platform for video, cinema will be even less like the cinema of yore. Get over it.