When I worked in publishing, the first question we asked before taking on any new project was, “Can we sell it to our current market?” That was the primary consideration. There were other factors, like subject matter (I once nixed a project that purported to teach people how to commit murder with a knife, for example); originality of the topic; quality of the manuscript/author presentation; etc. But it was always about how many copies we could sell.
But for politically-motivated agitprop projects that consistently fail, Hollywood is no different. It exists to make money, not art. As an adult, you know this.
With that in mind, all the “Dear Hollywood: Stop making reboots/remakes” letters and think pieces and podcasts have got to end. They’re a gigantic waste of time. These reboots make Hollywood money, so it’s crazy to ask an exec to make do with a smaller paycheck because you want more originality in your video entertainment. The execs look at sales figures and make their production decisions based on how much green they can rake in. As a heartless, malignant uber-capitalist, I applaud them. They’ve got a working business model.
So, like it or not, the Era of Remakes is upon us, and there’s nothing you can do about it.
Wait. Actually, there is.
It’s not enough to refuse to watch the remakes, the reboots, the reimaginings. They’re uniformly terrible anyway. If you really want the Hollywood panjandrums to offer original material, you’re also going to have to eschew the gigantic franchises: Star Wars, Star Trek, Marvel superheroes, DC superheroes. Not only are these franchises way past their sell-by date, but they suck all the air out of the room for anything else. There is nothing less imaginative or original than another Avengers movie or Star Wars prequel, most of which were written to entertain children (or adults trying to regain that elusive sense of childhood wonder in their middle years).
Hollywood’s doing nothing wrong. They’re giving you what you want. What you have to do is tell them that you want something different. The problem isn’t Hollywood: the problem is you. You, as the paying customer, have to make a specific and deliberate change in your entertainment choices if you want something other than Captain America movies. And that’s to stop seeing Captain America movies.
What I can’t believe is the number of content creators who spoon up the big franchise pablum themselves, not considering the idea that in doing so they’re pushing themselves out of the marketplace. People don’t go indie because they love working with tiny budgets and minimal distribution: they go indie, in part, because the bigger studios want franchise pieces that will guarantee a larger return. Makes sense, right? Why should Hollywood go out on a limb producing your unproven stuff when the viewing public will watch anything as long as Iron Man’s in it?
People like what they like and that’s fine. Nobody’s policing your entertainment choices. But you can’t complain about lack of imagination/originality when you’re supporting the very system that produces unimaginative, unoriginal pap. Particularly if you’re trying to get your own name out there.
This is your culture. Take the reins and steer it someplace else.
Fantastic piece, David. There’s no way around it: Hollywood is only feeding our insatiable appetite for franchise films, and you can’t really blame them for that. They may be enablers, but we are the addicts.
And I am also, like yourself, astounded by the number of content creators (novelists, screenwriters) — many of them very successful, with name/brand-recognizability — who openly sing the praises of Marvel and Star Wars and all the rest of it (for example: both Joe Hill and Hugh Howey have gone on the record about how some of the best storytelling in popular media right now is coming out of the MCU). Look, even if you enjoy these movies — and I personally do not — you’ve got to face the fact that they are, as you so eloquently stated, sucking all the air out of the room. I mean, Star Wars is forty years old at this point — how much longer are we going to allow this franchise to monopolize the cultural stage? Especially when, far from doing anything new or novel with it, all Disney has managed to do thus far is create a thinly disguised remake of the original (The Force Awakens) and a bunch of prequels no one asked for! This is a big sandbox, but you’d never know it, because we keep revisiting the same old stories, the same old characters, the same old scenarios. Meet the new Star Wars, same as the old Star Wars.
I second your plea: Fans of Star Wars and Star Trek and DC and Marvel — please, for the health of our culture, stop supporting these half-century-old franchises. Just put them in your photo album and stick them on a high shelf in the closet, and go out and support the work of a novelist or filmmaker that’s produced something original, and relevant to its times. Who knows — that might even become the next culturally defining narrative.
Hey, Sean:
Not only are they the enablers, they’re the suppliers. The pushers, even. And yes, we’re the addicts. The problem is that they’re redefining escapist entertainment to mean Star Dreck and Guys in Spandex, and honestly I don’t see a way out. The generations that produced films like Bridge on the River Kwai and Papillon were, I’m embarrassed to say, braver than subsequent generations. They went out and did things and built things and put men in space without supercomputers, and the things they did in their meager off-hours reflect that, including (especially) the movies they made.
How do you convince a whole population of people to take risks, even when it comes to their leisure time, on something more challenging than a 40-year-old science fiction franchise? 14 more Transformers movies: are you fucking kidding me? Is that crazy or what?
Anyway, yeah, I’ve reread your comment twice and can’t think of a single thing I disagree with it. Dead on.
Not for nothing, but I like B-movies and trashy films and other mindless entertainment, too. There’s a place for it, a vital place in our culture. They push the edges sometimes and provide us with cult pieces to dissect and appreciate. The last thing in the world I am is an entertainment snob. But this Star Dreck stuff has gotten way, WAY too big and is now redefining entertainment. It’s got to stop.