Major franchises are the name of the game in Hollywood. That’s nothing new. Major movie sequels and spin-offs have been central to the filmmaking business for decades, but in recent years, the role they play in the industry has become even more pronounced. Anymore, it seems like most of the major blockbuster movies that are released are some form of a sequel or continuation of a major franchise. If you were to go to a movie theater this spring, you would have options such asCreed III,John Wick 4,Scream VI,The Super Mario Bros. Movie,Evil Dead Rise, andDungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thievesto pick from.
Looking to the summer, many of the most anticipated movies of the season also fall in this same line, as films likeGuardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3,Fast X,The Little Mermaid,Transformers: Rise of the Beasts,andIndiana Jones and the Dial of Destinyare expected to bethe biggest movies of the year.
Audiences have become enamored with nostalgia, which has proven to be one of the few driving forces at the multiplex over the last decade. On top of that, the proliferation of streaming services and at-home viewing options has made it much easier for moviegoers to opt to stay home instead of going out to theaters for a movie. The quality of streaming series has begun to rival that of theatrical films, and most major theatrical movies end up being dumped onto a streaming service after only a few months in theaters anyway. With so many studios and streaming services vying for viewership, the reliance on recognizable brands and properties has reached an all-time high.
Now, with Warner Bros. Discovery producing a newHarry Potterseries fortheir new streaming service Max, Disney making a live-action version ofMoana,and Lionsgate developinga new series based on theTwilightbooksas well, it seems that Hollywood has gotten stuck on repeat.
Related:Harry Potter: The Pros and Cons of Rebooting the Series
Remakes, Remakes, Remakes
Hollywood has always been willing to remake old, successful movies that could use a more contemporary retelling. However, it used to be that the major studios would wait at least a few decades before remaking their movies in that way. When the major Hollywood remake boom happened in the 2010s, most of the movies being revisited were from the ‘80s at the very latest. Movies like 2010’sClash of the Titans, 2011’sFootloose, 2016’sThe Magnificent Sevenand 2014’sRoboCopwere all transparent attempts to capitalize on the recognizable names of major hits from decades past.
The studio that became most reliant on remakes in the 2010s was Disney, which started making live-action versions of its classic animated features. The first example of this was 2010’sAlice in Wonderland, directed by Tim Burton. Then, over the course of the decade, Disney went on to produce remakes ofCinderella,The Jungle Book,Beauty and the Beast,Dumbo,Aladdin,The Lion King,Lady and the TrampandMulan.
However, one of the through lines that ran between all of those films was that their original animated counterpart was, at the very least, 20 years old. The newest film of the bunch to receive a remake wasMulan, which had been released in 1998.
That’s not the case anymore, though. Throughout this year, the floodgates to remaking modern films have been opened. One of the first examples of this came from Universal, which began development on a live-action adaptation of 2010’sHow to Train Your Dragon, which just wrapped up its trilogy in 2019. Shortly after, Disney announced via Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson that they were beginning development ona live-action adaptation of 2016’sMoana, instead of developing the sequel that many fans were hoping for instead.
Then, WBD announced that it would be adapting theHarry Potterbooks again, except this time as a series for Max rather than as theatrical films. The same is true forTwilight, which Lionsgate is remaking as a streaming series with the intent to shop it around to services that would want to air it.
Related:The Loss of Magic in Disney’s Live-Action Remakes
Studios are Unwilling to Take Risks
The reasoning behind this new onslaught of remakes is simple. Hollywood studios are in the business of making money, and they believe that this is the best way to do so inthe modern entertainment era. People seem to be more interested in the brands and franchises they already love, rather than embracing newer films and stories. All ten of the highest-grossing films domestically in 2022 were either sequels or films built off a pre-existing property. The same is true of the top 9 films from 2021 (#10 was Disney’sFree Guy) and the top 10 movies in 2019, 2018 and 2017. With numbers like that, it’s hard to blame the major Hollywood studios for sticking to recognizable franchises.
However, that doesn’t mean original ideas should be shut out entirely. There needs to be a balance between pre-existing IPs and new ideas if Hollywood wants to maintain long-term theatrical stability. These major franchises will continue to be successful only as long as people are still interested in them, and audiences are growing increasingly exhausted of the same type of content over and over again.
The biggest example of this new shift is within the Marvel Cinematic Universe. While the MCU is still the biggest franchise in Hollywood, it’s not the unparalleled hitmaker that it used to be. Marvel has saturated the market and, as a result, people have become less interested in seeing every new MCU project. That’s why films likeAnt-Man and the Wasp: Quantumaniaandshows such asMs. Marvelhave underperformed so drastically.
At the very least, if Hollywood wants to keep using the same properties over and over again, they need to be expanding their franchises in new and exciting directions. If they are churning out the same stuff over and over again, people get tired of it quickly. Yet, the major studios seem to be doubling down on these properties by just remaking the core stories themselves instead.
There’s aMoanaremake instead of a sequel. They’re remakingTwilightinstead of diving further into that universe. Then there’sHarry Potter, which is a franchise that has already proven it can be successfully expanded with new characters and stories, but what is being produced for Max? A remake of the originalHarry Potterbooks.
Studios have become terrified of new and original ideas. Anything that is remotely outside what has worked before is now deemed too risky for the major Hollywood studios. Disney is going to continue remaking their animated movies – they don’t even need to be classics anymore – while the MCU pushes out one movie after another that fits into its cookie-cutter formula.
WBD is doubling down on brands likeHarry Potter,Game of Thronesand DC, while other studios like Paramount and Universal are trying to do whatever they can with the few recognizable franchises they have. The only way that any of this is going to change is if the viewing habits of general audiences shift. Thankfully, a change in audience taste and interest has been one of the few consistent trends in Hollywood since it began, so the reign of remakes like these might not last all that much longer.
