Rinse, Reuse, Reboot: Hollywood's Lack of Creativity

Total Recall, Spiderman, Rambo, Rock Balboa, Dredd 3D, RoboCop, Man of Steel, Fantastic Four, The A-Team, 21 Jump Street, Star Trek, Conan, TMNT, The Mummy, The Karate Kid, Clash of the Titans, Batman, James Bond, and even Twlight. All movies. All reboots or soon to be reboots.


Nowadays  as a filmgoer its been increasingly hard to find new and original material on the silver screen. More often than not I sit in the movie theater with my father and we see more than one trailer that he exclaims "Oh so they are remaking that?". I wonder if when I'm older and I take my kids out to the movies if I'l be exclaiming "Hey, they've made this movie about three times already. My dad saw the first version of this film 50 years ago!" I'm 26 years old and they have already done Superman, Batman and Spiderman over twice. Hulk has its third Bruce Banner in ten years. I was alive to see Judge Dredd and I'll be alive to see him again in Dredd 3D. Same goes for Godzilla, but that particular gem I'm not complaining about. I love that big green bastard.

Judgement already came...in 1995

Original screenplays aren't a commonplace anymore. Book to movie, and reboots are now king. And we pay to see it. Why? Because there isn't really anything else out there. I find myself gravitating towards television shows out there. The competition is fierce enough on TV that there isn't room for a reboot. Ergo why shows like Dallas failed, it's been done. When Bewitched became a movie it flopped. 

I yearn for original material. Something that will surprise me. Something that I can't predict. Can Hollywood truly be out of directors and writers that have vision?

"Will we ever see a film with as complex a script as Inception?"

Filmmakers like Christopher Nolan seem to come along once in a generation. James Cameron will be making Avatar films for the rest of his life. Will be being seeing the same recycled genius for the next ten years? Hopefully our dedication to the film making craft will be rewarded sooner rather than later.