Part of a series on the lack of originality and creativity in Hollywood.
1. The Karate Kid (remake)
2. The A-Team (tv)
3. Shrek Forever After (sequel)
4. Get Him to the Greek (spin-off)
5. Killers
6. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (video game)
7. Marmaduke (comic)
8. Sex and the City 2 (sequel)
9. Iron Man 2 (sequel)
10. Splice
(11. Robin Hood)
Week 2 originality rating: 20%
Overall originality rating: 25%
UPDATE: A reader points out that Get Him to the Greek is a spin-off of Forgetting Sarah Marshall. Ratings have been updated to reflect that, and thanks!
3 comments:
Interesting to note but not sure what indictment it’s making. If the movies were unsuccessful you could say Hollywood was failing to capture the public’s interest by producing unoriginal movies. But given the commercial success of such unoriginal productions you can only indict the public for buying rehashed ideas.
On the other hand, what standing do any of us have to judge the tastes of other people; they like what they like. At best we can only take note and say, here’s an interesting observation. I would also point out Hollywood has been making movies out of books since the beginning of film. This is as unoriginal as making a movie out of a comic book or a video game.
As you pointed out previously, at least they are taking it to a new medium. With cartoons and television show remakes, or in the case of sequels, they aren’t even doing that. But I fail to see the value of such a distinction.
Whether I make a movie out of a book or a television show I’m still creating an experience of value to the customer or it wouldn’t make any money. So it either has value or it doesn’t and the moviegoer is the one who ultimately decides what gets made.
Speaking of making books into movies, does it matter if the story is first published as a book or written for the screen? Assuming we lived in a world where it was undesirable to make an unoriginal movie, an author would have to decide whether to tell his story as a novel or a screenplay before he started writing.
Compared to the relatively inexpensive book publishing industry, a movie is a huge investment. A first run of 5,000 books might cost a publisher $100,000 at the high end. A hundred times that amount is barely a drop in the bucket for a movie budget.
So the hurdle is much higher for a screenplay to be made into a movie than for a book to be published. Therefore, writers are going to take more chances with a book manuscript than they are with a screenplay.
I would argue therefore, the most original movies are made from successful books because the author could take more risks with his writing and the ones the public appreciates can be made into movies.
Ultimately, movies must appeal to a large audience so they will always tend to the tried and true storylines. A fact of the economic realities of life.
I agree that not all of the methods I point out are equally unoriginal. The remake and sequel are perhaps the most egregious, but I also think that book-to-movie is generally the best route to success.
To be sure, I think I'll find out more by going back years (and even decades) and seeing what the top ten lists look like then.
Even then, as you point out, the top ten lists are only a measure of commercial success, and not necessarily a measure of if the movies are any good.
Considering all that, I suspect my ratings will...evolve. :-)
Everytime I see a poster, trailer, or commercial for the new karate Kid that KD logo makes me think of Kraft Easy Mac...
http://brands.kraftfoods.com/EasyMac/
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