Adaptations, Remakes, Reboots, and Sequels: The Terror!

Recently, I read that Will Ferrell was upset with Paramount because they decided not to do a sequel to his hit film Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy.  In an article for The Daily Beast titled "How Sequels are Killing the Movie Business," Roger Ebert writes,

[Will Ferrell] has helpfully called the executives who made the decision "idiots," and told the movie's fans, "You really have to assert some sort of email hate campaign to Paramount Pictures. They told us, 'We've run the numbers and it's not a good fit.'

They've run the numbers? This is more evidence, not really needed, that a majority of modern big-studio releases are marketing decisions yoked however reluctantly to creative ideas somewhere down the food chain. The majors in general make good films either (1) for Oscar season or (2) purely by accident. Weekend releases between May and September might better be covered by marketing specialists than film critics. (Ebert)

Of course, I have not seen Anchorman so I don't know if I should be upset by the news that a sequel is not in the works. However, Ebert also lamented the fact that a record number of sequels are scheduled for release this year: 27. This beats the previous record holder: 2003 with 24. I have even criticized (only to those friends who would listen of course) the 2010 best picture nominees because most were not original ideas but based on some other source (Toy Story 3, 127 Hours, The King's Speech, Winter's Bone, True Grit, The Fighter, The Social Network), only a few were not (Inception, The Kids Are All Right, Black Swan). Black Swan's inclusion in the list is debatable, I believe, because it relies heavily on Swan Lake, but it's presentation is original enough to warrant a spot in my second classification. Funny enough, the same could be said for The Social Network due to it's very liberal adaptation of Mark Zuckerberg's building of Facebook.

Of the best picture nominees I saw (still have not seen Winter's Bone), all were really good films, but the most original films seemed to have the least amount of chance of winning. Oh well, I'm not a member of the Academy so I don't get to make those decisions. If I did have the opportunity to make that decision I would have chosen the film to which I had the strongest emotional reaction, the one I enjoyed watching the most: Inception.

Sequels, remakes, and reboots are not bad in and of themselves. Actually, they can be quite good, sometimes eclipsing the original in quality (The Dark Knight, Spider-Man 2, Star Trek 2: The Wrath of Khan). The quality of adaptations usually depends a lot on the source material. Either way, there does seem to be fewer and fewer original ideas making their way through the Hollywood system.

Jason Dietz from Metacritic has a more mathematical approach to the problem: He ran the numbers. In his article, "Are Original Movies Really Better than Derivative Works?," Dietz lays out the numbers quite clearly. Yes, studios tend to play it safe rather than take a risk on an unproven idea, but he also reports that critics trended much the same way: "over the past five years, movies based on existing concepts have been reviewed slightly more favorably than films based on original ideas" (Dietz).

Original ideas get hammered by critics and audiences, so it makes logical sense that studios only do a few original concepts a year. Of course, Dietz has an answer for that too:

One reason these "original" films may not be scoring as highly as you might expect is that they really aren't very original at all, in the conventional sense of the word.

In fact, even though they aren't based on any one specific existing film, many of these "original" movies may simply re-hash tired genre tropes that audiences have already seen countless times in prior films. One of the reasons a movie like Inception resonated with audiences and critics last summer is that not only was it the rare big-budget event film not to be based on another property, but it also incorporated a storyline and visual style that were relatively unique. That's why many movie fans are also excited about upcoming films like Super-8 and The Tree of Life, and less so about not-so-original "original" films such as Friends with Benefits, which seem far more common in recent years. (Dietz)

Both Ebert and Dietz make some really good points, and I must say it's interesting to see the numbers laid out. All of this talk has reminded me of something I learned in theater a long time ago: You have to produce a show everyone will see so you make enough money to produce the show only a few people will see.

Truly original ideas are hard to sell. Inception had an advantage because Christopher Nolan had had a huge success with The Dark Knight, and Black Swan had the advantage of a lesbian sex scene. Both writers also failed in making what I thought was an obvious observation: With rising ticket prices and a deep recession, audiences have become more frugal with their money. After all, not everyone can be a critic, able to see movies for free (unless I'm mistaken here), so studios have adapted to the changing times by producing more of what audiences are more willing to pay for.

There is something else I find intriguing as well. Many original concepts have the potential to make most audiences uncomfortable (or those same concepts could be really, really bad) when all most people are after is easy and fun entertainment. Most people are just not willing to take the risk. Being uncomfortable is not an easy place for many, and many of us do not deal with change well. Derivative ideas are comfortable exactly because the concept is not new. There is little to no risk involved; no one is rocking the boat with a sequel. What would have be even more interesting in Dietz's numbers is if he and his team had gone just a bit further back in time, say to 2000 and 2001. Many of the franchises of today began after 9/11, when the world as we knew it changed drastically, a considerable rocking of the boat. Hopefully, if the world is ever allowed to calm down a bit, we can get back to a time when, as Steven Soderbergh wrote in an email to Ebert, good original works are released on a more frequent basis: "Several decades ago audiences could expect a film such as The Social Network every week; now we are lucky to have one or two a year" (qtd in Ebert).

Of adaptations, remakes, sequels, and reboots, I have the most problem with reboots, not because I don't enjoy the good ones, but because there should be a considerable amount of time between the original series and the reboot. Two to five years is not a considerable amount of time. A cleansing of the palette must occur, otherwise what's the point?

All in all I don't think derivative works are inherently bad. What frustrates me, and possibly others as well, is the seemingly rapid fire release of these works. Every couple of years we know to expect the latest installments of a franchise, especially if that franchise has proven profitable. Maybe what Hollywood needs is a reset button, a reset on the economy and the psychological state of audiences; that way they will be willing to take more risks, not enough to go bankrupt, but just enough to make the sheer quantity of derivative works more bearable.

Works Cited

Ebert, Roger. "How Sequels are Killing the Movie Business." The Daily Beast. 15 May 2011. Web. 20 May 2011.

Dietz, Jason. "Are Original Movies Really Better than Derivative Works?" Metacritic. 21 Apr. 2011. Web. 20 May 2011.