Why Does Hollywood Have an Originality Problem?
Commenting on the lack of originality in Hollywood today has become cliché. But films can be—and many of the best are—original works of art.
Commenting on the lack of originality in Hollywood today has become cliché. It seems that most new movies are franchise entries, live-action remakes of animated films, adaptations of novels or video games, or based on historical figures or events.
Though great adaptations can bring a fresh perspective to an old story, films can be—and many of the best are—original works of art that stand on their own. This is, in part, because film is a different medium from books, plays, or video games; and stories carefully crafted for film have the potential to make full use of its capabilities. But more fundamentally, original films create a new artistic value of their own rather than adding to or retelling an existing story.
Counterintuitively, the overall percentage of scripts that are “original” (not based on real life, a written work, or another movie) has remained roughly constant since the 1980s. But two things have changed since then: first, the number of popular films that are sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes, or based on products (such as Barbie and the Lego films) has increased; and second, the percentage of box office revenue in the United States that original movies have earned has declined by almost half.1
Note: this chart counts franchise entries (sequels, prequels, and spinoffs) as “original” if they were not adapted from a book series, comic book, TV show, video game, toy, theme park ride, or other movie.
So, why are popular movies predominantly derivative? Perhaps because Hollywood executives face crushing pressure to maximize investor returns in the face of dropping cinema attendance (which may be worsened, in turn, because audiences are less incentivized to pay rising ticket prices to watch derivative films). As a result, studios favor movies that tie into already-popular franchises or brands over taking risks on new ideas.
But sometimes taking a risk is necessary to create films that are both artistically valuable and commercially successful. Now-iconic original films such as Star Wars, Back to the Future, and Toy Story were rejected many times as unlikely to succeed before a studio finally gave them a chance—and they were massive box-office hits, each coming in first or second place on the worldwide charts in their respective years of release.2
The high cost of star-studded, effects-heavy movies further increases the drive to guarantee the highest possible returns. Studios are spending piles of money on advertising to draw people back to the big screen in the face of competition from streaming platforms, social media, and online gaming—which further increases the box-office receipts needed to break even. For instance, the 2023 Barbie movie’s marketing budget was twice that of its production costs.3
It seems that many studios have chosen to focus on the concrete elements of what’s been “proven” to make a profit on all that expense: popular franchises, games, and toys; well-loved characters; and remakes of stories that did well at the box office in the past. The delightful How to Train Your Dragon is getting a live-action remake fifteen years after the animated version premiered to excellent reviews, making it the latest instance of two trends: an increasing percentage of movie releases being remakes and a decreasing amount of time between the original and the remake (the average is currently about twenty-five years).4
This approach makes a certain kind of sense; studios need to make money, so why not go with what has worked rather than take a risk? But there’s a fundamental problem: Production comes before consumption, or to put it another way, supply drives demand. As Steve Jobs put it, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”5 This is especially true when it comes to art. Original art can take situations and people we wouldn’t expect to care about and make them deeply memorable because they represent important values. Or it can take a known situation or place and show us startling things about it that we had never noticed before. Though original scripts are a risk, they have given rise to many successful films featuring hero’s journeys against epic backdrops (Star Wars), heart-wrenching story arcs (The Blind Side), and new perspectives on the challenges of everyday life (Inside Out).
Of course, creatively adapted movies can add value to existing stories. Peter Jackson’s The Lord of the Rings trilogy—considered a huge risk when it was originally made—is now justly regarded as a cinematic masterpiece. Though it wasn’t an original work, it stands out because of how Jackson took fantasy elements that, until then, hadn’t been translated on-screen and used them to create an unparalleled work of visual art of epic scope. In other words, the filmmakers’ innovation added value to a remarkable existing story, resulting in a uniquely cinematic experience and a feast for the senses that still retained much of the depth of the original story. Nonetheless, faithful film adaptations necessarily omit much from a rich book or series. As a result, much of the value—in particular, the characterization and the abstract themes—is usually diluted or even entirely omitted in an adaptation. By contrast, scripts crafted specifically for movies tend to be better at using the limited time frame and visual storytelling to convey their plots compellingly than does a novel condensed and adapted for film.
Art is powerful because it can condense a wealth of observations and thoughts into a single scene, character, or story line. An artist can convey a clear, shocking depiction of an abstract idea—of courage or cowardice, love or fear, redemption or revenge. Good artworks concretize such abstractions vividly and perceptually, evoking emotions and creating memorable examples that we can refer to in our lives. Art can help us through a tough time, encourage us to work for something we want, or simply give us a chance to look at a world full of our values and breathe. But for art to be that kind of spiritual fuel, it needs to present important and universal values—things everyone can relate to or at least understand. If movies simply make visual the abstractions that other artists have already concretized in characters, conflicts, and worlds (or give a slightly different visual form to films or plays created in the past) their utility as an art form is severely hampered. It’s as though rather than generating their own unique products, they’re merely offering cheap knockoffs, counterfeits, and hoping that nobody will notice.
Movies are a luxury, not a necessity; even those audience members who recognize the crucial role art plays in a full, thriving life will get their art elsewhere if the cinema continues to disappoint—and streaming services’ elaborate, often well-integrated TV series are a tempting alternative. Hollywood executives could learn a great deal from successful businesspeople such as Jobs, who on some level understand that wealth generation depends on creating something new and useful—the opposite of being a slave to what’s worked in the past. Creating original products (be they computers or films) based on universal needs and desires is the way to win hearts—and dollars.
In the Motown 40th anniversary documentary, an experienced entertainment industry person said of Motown's difficulty getting into the movie making industry said the attitude seemed like:
'If too much is good even more is better.' Whack!