Hollywood Unoriginality, Redux

If you remember back as far as June of last year, I did a short series of posts on what I perceived to be the lack of originality in new movies: they're mostly remakes, sequels, or something (TV, comic book, video-game) to movie.  Over the course of that period I found that only about 20% of the movies were realistically original.

So after a break of six months let's take another look at last weekend's top ten:

1. Little Fockers (sequel/series)
2. True Grit (remake)
3. Tron Legacy (sequel)
4. Yogi Bear (cartoon)
5. The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader (sequel/series)
6. The Fighter
7. Tangled (fairy tale)
8. Gulliver's Travels (book, remake)
9. Black Swan
10. The King's Speech

So, more or less, only three "original" movies.  Again, this doesn't de-value the potential of the "unoriginal" movies; some or many of them are undoubtedly good movies.  They're just not truly original.

Hollywood Unoriginality: Week 3

Part of a series on the lack of originality and creativity in Hollywood. New releases in bold.

1. Toy Story 3 (sequel)
2. The Karate Kid (remake)
3. The A-Team (tv)
4. Get Him to the Greek (spin-off)
5. Shrek Forever After (sequel)
6. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (video game)
7. Killers
8. Jonah Hex (comic)
9. Iron Man 2 (sequel)
10. Marmaduke (comic)
(11. Sex in the City 2)
(12. Robin Hood)

Week 3 originality rating: 10%
Overall rating: 20.0%

EDITED 6/24: Jonah Hex is based on a comic book.

Hollywood Unoriginality: Week 2

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!

Hollywood Unoriginality: Introduction and Week 1

It seems to me that most new movies are unoriginal: remakes, sequels, or something (TV, comic book, video-game) to movie. In that last category, TV-to-movie is the least original; while at least books and comic books are taking the plot to a new medium. So a little bit of slack there. Anyways, let's take last week's Top 10 and see how it turns out:

1. Shrek Forever After (sequel)
2. Get Him to the Greek (spin-off)
3. Killers
4. Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (video game)
5. Sex and the City 2 (sequel)
6. Marmaduke (comics)
7. Iron Man 2 (comics, sequel)
8. Splice
9. Robin Hood (remake)
10. Letters to Juliet

So, six of the top ten are, more or less, unoriginal. That's not to say that they can't be any good or successful, because many such remakes are ultimately successful (even more so than their originals); but the originality is ultimately lacking.

My 30% originality rating is incredibly crude, and will continue to be so, since many films will stay in the top ten and be counted multiple times. But I'm not looking for statistical perfection here, rather I just hope to confirm what I already believe to be true, that Hollywood doesn't have many good ideas anymore.

The week's wide releases are The A-Team (TV) and The Karate Kid (remake), so don't expect to see much change in next week's originality ratings. :-)