As the 2010 summer blockbuster season surges forward, we movie fans are once again left to bemoan the lack of decent ideas being put to the big screen. With sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes, reboots, reimagining’s, adaptations and sequels of rebooted adaptations taking up most of Hollywood’s attention, it is becoming harder and harder to find a big budget movie that doesn’t rely on previous franchise appeal. For me, the one original film that can yet redeem 2010 is Christopher Nolan’s Inception, a $200 million sci-fi actioner that is not based on anything other than the ideas of its writer/director.
Now I’m not saying that 2010 has seen no decent blockbusters– quite the contrary, in comparison to last year’s awful X-Men Origins and Transformers 2, I think the mediocre A-Team and Robin Hood stack up quite well. Never the less, 2010 has been the year where I have become completely disillusioned with Hollywood. And here’s why.
As of July 1st 2010, there have been sixty films to receive a wide release in North America this year (that is to say, sixty were released on six hundred or more screen in The United States and Canada). I have broken those sixty films down into three rudimentary categories, which I will now briefly explain.
CATEGORY A – A film based or spun-off from a high-profile property, specifically intended to exploit the previous success and/or general public’s familiarity with that property.
These include sequels, prequels, remakes and franchise reboots, as well as films based on well known games, comic books, novels, television series or any other well known story. Examples of Category A films in 2010 include Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia and Twilight: Eclipse.
CATEGORY B - A film based on a previously existing property that audiences will have limited knowledge of; it is not based on an original concept.
These include adaptations of lesser known books and graphic novels, or remakes of relatively unknown films. These movies are not necessary playing on prior audience awareness, but are never-the-less not based on original ideas. Examples of Category B films in 2010 include Clash of the Titans, Shutter Island and Jonah Hex.
CATEGORY C – A film based not based on a pre-existing property, but rather on an original script.
This category is pretty self-explanatory; examples of Category C films in 2010 include The Book of Eli, Hot Tub Time Machine and Knight and Day
Note: Obviously classifying the films isn’t an exact science – for example, Clash of the Titans could be argued as a Category A or Category B film, as it is somewhat difficult to gauge the public’s awareness of the original film. In cases such as these, I have erred on the side of caution (that is to say, I ranked Clash of the Titans as a Category B film).
When you sort all the films that received a wide release January 1st and July 1st into these three categories, you end up with this graph:
Now this doesn’t look too awful. But while the films explicitly exploiting audiences come in third, when you combine Category’s A & B to show original ideas vs. unoriginal ones, the graph looks more like this:
Now the numbers go 27 to 33 in unoriginality’s favour.
But it gets worse. Most of the films you see in Category C are ones that were released in the earlier part of the year, where ticket sales are generally not as strong. The real money is made in the North American summer season. Pinning down exactly where this starts is an inexact science; one could say the summer began as early as April with the release of Clash of the Titans. However, there is little doubt that by the time Iron Man 2 rolled around in early May, the season had definitely begun. The following graph takes a look at all the films released wide between May 7th and July 1st:
That’s right. Of the twenty films to receive wide release in this period, a whopping fourteen were based on a previously existing property; twelve of which (five sequels, five adaptations - six including Eclipse, also a sequel - a remake of The Karate Kid, plus Robin Hood, which clearly exploited the name of the character) were clear Category A films. And of the six original films, which included juvenile comedy Grown Ups and niche sci-fi thriller Splice, not one of them could be expected put up a fight again the money-making behemoths of Eclipse or Iron Man 2.
And that of course is what it all comes down to: money. The truth is, Hollywood as an entity is not to blame for the glut of unoriginality it produces. We are. The most damning evidence of all comes from looking at the box offices returns. As of July 1st, the ten highest grossing films at the world-wide box office are as follows:
Now I’m not saying that 2010 has seen no decent blockbusters– quite the contrary, in comparison to last year’s awful X-Men Origins and Transformers 2, I think the mediocre A-Team and Robin Hood stack up quite well. Never the less, 2010 has been the year where I have become completely disillusioned with Hollywood. And here’s why.As of July 1st 2010, there have been sixty films to receive a wide release in North America this year (that is to say, sixty were released on six hundred or more screen in The United States and Canada). I have broken those sixty films down into three rudimentary categories, which I will now briefly explain.
CATEGORY A – A film based or spun-off from a high-profile property, specifically intended to exploit the previous success and/or general public’s familiarity with that property.
These include sequels, prequels, remakes and franchise reboots, as well as films based on well known games, comic books, novels, television series or any other well known story. Examples of Category A films in 2010 include Iron Man 2, Prince of Persia and Twilight: Eclipse.
CATEGORY B - A film based on a previously existing property that audiences will have limited knowledge of; it is not based on an original concept.
These include adaptations of lesser known books and graphic novels, or remakes of relatively unknown films. These movies are not necessary playing on prior audience awareness, but are never-the-less not based on original ideas. Examples of Category B films in 2010 include Clash of the Titans, Shutter Island and Jonah Hex.
CATEGORY C – A film based not based on a pre-existing property, but rather on an original script.
This category is pretty self-explanatory; examples of Category C films in 2010 include The Book of Eli, Hot Tub Time Machine and Knight and Day
Note: Obviously classifying the films isn’t an exact science – for example, Clash of the Titans could be argued as a Category A or Category B film, as it is somewhat difficult to gauge the public’s awareness of the original film. In cases such as these, I have erred on the side of caution (that is to say, I ranked Clash of the Titans as a Category B film).
When you sort all the films that received a wide release January 1st and July 1st into these three categories, you end up with this graph:
Now this doesn’t look too awful. But while the films explicitly exploiting audiences come in third, when you combine Category’s A & B to show original ideas vs. unoriginal ones, the graph looks more like this:
Now the numbers go 27 to 33 in unoriginality’s favour.But it gets worse. Most of the films you see in Category C are ones that were released in the earlier part of the year, where ticket sales are generally not as strong. The real money is made in the North American summer season. Pinning down exactly where this starts is an inexact science; one could say the summer began as early as April with the release of Clash of the Titans. However, there is little doubt that by the time Iron Man 2 rolled around in early May, the season had definitely begun. The following graph takes a look at all the films released wide between May 7th and July 1st:
That’s right. Of the twenty films to receive wide release in this period, a whopping fourteen were based on a previously existing property; twelve of which (five sequels, five adaptations - six including Eclipse, also a sequel - a remake of The Karate Kid, plus Robin Hood, which clearly exploited the name of the character) were clear Category A films. And of the six original films, which included juvenile comedy Grown Ups and niche sci-fi thriller Splice, not one of them could be expected put up a fight again the money-making behemoths of Eclipse or Iron Man 2.And that of course is what it all comes down to: money. The truth is, Hollywood as an entity is not to blame for the glut of unoriginality it produces. We are. The most damning evidence of all comes from looking at the box offices returns. As of July 1st, the ten highest grossing films at the world-wide box office are as follows:
| Film | Box Office (US$) |
| Alice in Wonderland | $1,021,000,000 |
| Iron Man 2 | $610,000,000 |
| Clash of the Titans | $491,000,000 |
| How To Train Your Dragon | $477,000,000 |
| Toy Story 3 | $373,000,000 |
| Shrek Forever After | $323,000,000 |
| Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time | $313,000,000 |
| Robin Hood | $302,000,000 |
| Shutter Island | $294,000,000 |
| Sex and the City 2 | $265,000,000 |
Not a single original film among them, and at least seven Category A films (marked in red).
At this point I need to pause. What exactly am I arguing here? That we need more original films? As much as I bemoan the state of Hollywood, of the twenty seven original films this year, I myself have only seen two (admittedly some of the films haven’t been released in Australia where I live, but this statistic is still damning). Conversely, of the thirty three Category A and B films, I have seen twelve, and have plans to see three more.
Why is this? Honestly, it’s probably a combination of things. Most Category C films this year haven’t looked that appealing, while Category A & B films haven’t been that bad – my two favourite films so far this year have been Toy Story 3 (a sequel) and Shutter Island (an adaptation of a novel by Dennis Lehane).
Plus, let’s face it: familiarity is appealing. For me to see a film that I am not already familiar with (essentially, a Category C or B film) it needs to look good. On the other hand, a Category A film only has to look okay, as long as I liked what it was based on (a perfect example from this year would be the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street – I never though it looked good, but I saw it anyway because of my love of the franchise).With all this in mind, let us look to the immediate future. Assuming that the summer season ends at the end of August, there are eleven films left that seem likely to receive wide releases. And they are spread pretty evenly over the three categories. In Category A, based on high-profile previously existing properties, we have Predators, Step Up 3D, Nanny McPhee Returns and Cats and Dogs: The Revenge of Kitty Galore.
In Category B: movies based on low-profile properties we have The Sorcerer’s Apprentice (based in part on a segment from Fantasia), Dinner for Schmucks (based on the French film Le dîner de cons) and Scott Pilgrim vs. The World (based on the series of graphic novels). Finally in Category C: original films, we have Despicable Me, Salt, The Expendables and of course the big one, Inception.
To be fair, I have high expectations of both Predators and Scott Pilgrim, neither of them original films. But here is why Inception is the key. Inception is a huge movie. I’ve talked about wide releases, but there no conceivable way that Salt or The Expendables, the other two original action movies yet to be released this year, will have the same drawing power at the next film from the director of The Dark Knight starring Leonardo DiCaprio. And if Inception succeeds, it will prove that audiences are still interested in original ideas.And the reason this is important? It’s all about the future. All things considered, the unoriginal films of 2010 haven’t been that awful. Robin Hood, Iron Man 2, The A-Team. None of them great, but certainly not disasters. But what about 2011, a year in which the summer line up includes Transformers 3, Pirates of the Caribbean 4, Spy Kids 4 and Final Destination 5 (nauseatingly titled 5NAL DESTINATION). Do we really believe that these endless barrages of money-minded sequels are going to be any good?
And frankly, do we want them to be? Is mediocre good enough? Personally, I don’t think so. Even if it is “only” an action movie, I want it to be great. I want it to be Star Trek, The Dark Knight. Hell, I want Raiders of the Lost Ark. Well directed, well acted, intelligent blockbusters can be made, so why should we settle for any less? Vote with your wallets, and make an original film like Inception the big winner of 2010.
Of course my entire hypothesis is based on one fairly major assumption: that Inception is going to great. Thankfully, all the indicators point to just that. Christopher Nolan is, I think, the only excellent director currently working in truly mainstream cinema. Additionally, the film’s cast is excellent and all the trailers have been intriguing. If the film sucks, then I guess our one remaining hope lies with The Expendables...which is probably cause for some concern.Ultimately, I think I’ve proven basically nothing with this piece. I’m sure I could have written the exact same thing for 2009, and will probably end up doing just that for 2011. The truth is, Category A films: remakes, sequels, cash-grabbing adaptations, are going to continue to get made for as long as people like you and I keep paying for them. Which, like idiots, we will. In the years to come we are going to see movies based on Monopoly, Battleships and The Magic 8-Ball (I am not kidding, these are all real projects).
So my hope is simple. If we get just one original film into the big ten earners, then maybe we can delay the inevitable death of mainstream cinema as we know it. We’ll always have independent films, foreign movies and documentaries to fall back on, but I for one would also like to preserve the popcorn flick for as long as humanly possible. To do so, Inception needs be a) good and b) successful. We don’t have much control over the former, but please, for the love of god and movies, do everything you can to influence the latter.
Inception will be in theatres in the US from July 16th, and in Australia from July 22nd.All data used in this piece was gathered from Wikipedia, which probably calls the validity of the entire thing, already sketchy at best, into serious doubt. Sue me.
What do you think?! Am I crazy? Was Iron Man 2 awesome? Does Inception just look like a rip-off of The Matrix? Are you super duper psyched for Cats and Dogs 2? Have I just been rambling incoherently this entire time? Let me know in the comments below. Let’s get a debate going people!
