Graph Explanation: I charted this graph by looking at the top 20 movies (Box office domestic gross) from the year 1990 to 2018
I defined "Original" movies as ether original or adapted screenplays that had never touched the silver screen beforehand (thus entailing risk by the studios for being unproven)
Everything else is ether a prequel, sequel, remake or a franchise(James Bond, Xmen, Marvel, Lethal Weapon, Ice Age ect.) I counted the first such movie (I.E Ice Age) if it was in the Top 20 an Original. I also gave Thor(2011) and Captain America(2011) the benefit of the doubt.
My Takeaway: It's very strange to look at the year 1993 and see that "Sister Act 2" was literally the only film that meets my criteria for a unoriginal movie and then jump to 2018 where we have 17 out of 20 films hitting that criteria.
What I think this graph plots accurately is the transformation of Hollywood into an engine that produces a "Franchise" or "Series". The ball really got rolling in 2001 when Harry Potter, The Fast and the Furious, Lord of the Rings, and Shrek hit theaters. This created a run away chain reaction that culminated with Iron Man(2008) and Hollywood(especially Disney) hasn't looked back since. Unlike older movie franchises like James Bond and Star Trek, Hollywood realized there is far more money to be made the faster you could manufacture one sequel after another.
No major studio seems willing to take a big budget risk on something like the Matrix anymore, and if they do produce a big budget original there is a good chance it flops anyway (see Jupiter Rising and John Carter goes to Mars) So why risk it? The few original blockbusters produced in the last 5 years are almost always with the intention it will blow up into a Franchise, which of course hurts artistic integrity when looking at a movie as a whole, so they fail before they have started.
Movie theaters are undergoing a gradual transformation into a new version of "HBO" or "Netflix" where you can catch the next installment of your favorite series. Paradoxically, modern TV and streaming services are producing shows which are far more movie like then they ever were before (Sopranos, Breaking Bad, Game of Thrones, Stranger Things ect.)
I also wanted to make a graph showing reviews averaged out between 1990-2018 in the top 20, but this is very difficult due both to objectivity and the lack of things like IMDB and Rotten Tomatoes in the 90's. Regardless I suspect the general quality of movies has gone down because in an era of stand alone movies (1990-2000) high quality and entertaining films must naturally rise to the top to make money. However, in the era of "Franchises" you can produce absolutely terrible, soulless, badly written films (Beauty and the Beast/The Crimes of Grindlewald/Batman v Superman/any Star Wars outside of the original trilogy) and still rake in hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars.
Unfortunately, if we keep heading in the direction of the chart I fully expect to be watching How to Train Your Dragon 9,Fast&Furious Part 26 and Star Wars XXIV when I walk into the theaters in 2029. Hopefully however, we reach a breaking point between movie quality and unoriginality that forces our beloved movies in new directions.
Link to the doc I made by pulling Top 20 Domestic Gross off Box Office mojo from 1990-2018, "Unoriginal" movies are italicized.
Submitted July 20, 2019 at 11:50AM by Undependable https://ift.tt/2Y7RYr6