Does Hollywood need new stories?
Over the last 25 years, the number of sequels and remakes churned out of the Hollywood machine has increased by 700%.
In September 2019, Radio Times reported that only one film (Elton John’s biopic Rocketman) could be classed as an original. This year over twenty remakes will be released; from Wonder Woman to Rebecca, and Call of the Wild to Tom and Jerry: Why is Hollywood afraid of new material?
According to remake comparison site Remake My Day, 87% of original movies are preferred by critics to their remakes, and 91% of remakes scored lower with audiences. On top of that, only 21% of the remakes they compared were more profitable. The 1960 cult-classic Psycho, for example, scored an 85 (audience) and 97 (critics) rating on the site, whereas the 1998 Universal Pictures remake starring Vince Vaughn and Julianne Moore scored 46 (audience) and 47 (critics).
There are exceptions, of course, 2018’s Academy Award-winning A Star is Born being the obvious example. The 1937 original scored a critics and audience combined average an average of 76.5, while the 2018 remake starring Lady Gaga and Bradley cooper scored a combined average of 83.5. This, however, is a relatively small difference when taking into consideration the developments in cinema in the decades between the two, and the star-power packed into the remake. The film was also remade in 1954 starring Judy Garland and 1976 starring Barbara Streisand.
This frustrating recycling of old stories is not a new grievance, but it grabbed my attention following this years’ latest remake of Jane Austen’s Emma (starring up-and-comer Anya Taylor-Joy), Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca (starring Armie Hammer and Lily James) and the recently announced remake of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. As one Twitter user put it; “So brave of the film industry to depart from Pride and Prejudice and Emma to make an adaptation of… Persuasion.”
One theory for Hollywood’s penchant for recycling stories is the capitalisation of nostalgia. Parents enjoy sharing tales from their childhood with their children, in the form of remade classics. It may or may not come as a surprise to realise A Christmas Carol is one of the most remade films of all time, with nine versions between 1901 and 2009 (and that doesn’t even include tv mini-series). It is a classic story which most parents will remember hearing or watching as children, the nostalgia instils as a desire to pass the Christmas message on throughout the generations. This also rings true for Disney, remaking the hit films with the latest technologies of the twenty-first century.
The advancement of cinematic technologies extends to many films, particularly within the horror and sci-fi genres, which benefit from 3D, special effects and improved sound quality. Some of the most frequently recycled stories include; alien sci-fi film Invasion of the Body Snatcher (remade four times between 1956 and 2007), Japanese action film Seven Samurai (remade four times between 1954 and 2016); King Kong (remade four times between 1933 and 2017) and Batman (remade six times between 1943 and 2021), both stories which greatly benefit from the development of computer-generated imagery (CGI).
Another pull to remakes in cinema is the tangled web of licensing. Film studios such as Sony often hold the licenses for franchises such as Marvel. They have to keep continuing to make movies within that franchise as per their contract or the license is lost, and the rights return to the franchise e.g. Marvel and the studio loses an easy money-maker.
It is also undeniably less of a financial gamble to remake something if the original found success, then pitch an entirely new story. And, we do keep paying for them.
If the early 2000s was the era of SFX and 3D, it seems we have entered a new era of nostalgia. This could be confounded by the rocky start to the decade in 2020 has thus. What better setting than a pandemic to make audiences hanker for the past?
But I still want new stories. I want to fall in love with new characters and be completely enraptured by their characterisation. I want to watch films without being reminded of painful A-level English lessons trying to absorb and regurgitate entire Jane Austen novels. And I want stories that reflect the here and now and multitudes of protagonists that different audience members can relate to.
How do we break the cycle? One solution seems to be to look for foreign cinema, where creativity remains plentiful; Bong Joon-ho’s Parasite being case and point. Perhaps the new, controversial Academy Award eligibility rules will help too. Announced earlier in the month and due to come into play for the 2024 Oscars, they focus on standards promoting more inclusive representation and more inclusive employment; essentially cast, crews and characters will need to tick certain diversity boxes. The new rules are not perfect and have faced criticism for everything from their slow phasing in, to their loose copying of the BAFTA rules. But, in terms of new stories, a widening of range might just be the thing to push the industry to look outside the Hollywood echo chamber.