Let’s face it, movies these days suck–at least, movies from any major film or animation studio in Hollywood. Recent releases like “The Marvels,” “Quantumania,” and “Napoleon” feel rushed, shallow, cheap—like the production team had a couple million less in the budget than they’d expected, and the writers turned in their scripts last minute.
Even popular films don’t feel particularly well-conceived. Movies that most people love, like “Barbie,” build on established intellectual property (IP) and do shallow swan dives into complex subjects in attempts to market themselves as progressive and relatable. Meanwhile, films such as “Oppenheimer” and “Priscilla” were drawn from real events—there’s not much room for failure when your plot was already written for you in history books from half an age ago.
Movies I’ve personally loved have also played into the film industry’s lack of innovation. “Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse” pulled from corners of the Spider-Man IP that I hadn’t even known existed, with little-known characters from the comics appearing regularly. “The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” was a prequel to one of the most popular and profitable franchises in the last 20 years. Think of any film made in recent years that you’ve loved, and chances are, the characters, story, and setting have already been written down before.
Films in recent years have become low-risk. There haven’t been new or innovative characters or stories in a long time. But why is the film industry becoming so… mediocre? So shy? Where are the filmmakers who are willing to make bold strokes and statements, that are ready to capture the deeply personal, the refreshingly new, the shockingly controversial? Filmmakers that want to make something no one has ever seen before or something so instinctual and human it takes your breath away?
The answer is money. Established IP and adaptations of historical events or people is an easy way to ensure a baseline income. If there’s already an established fanbase for a certain person, character, or franchise, then that’s an established audience for your movie; you don’t have to hook viewers or keep them interested in something new. You can regurgitate old characters, put a shiny new suit on them, and know ahead of time that you’ll be making your money back.
In addition to being more profitable, films from existing franchises are also quicker and easier to make. For example, if you’re familiar with Marvel, you’ll know that the franchise is broken up into phases. Phase One, Two, and Three spanned a total of 11 years (2008 – 2019) and amounted to 2996 minutes of runtime, with an average of 272.3 minutes per year. Phase Four, which took place over two years, added up to a whopping runtime of 3542 minutes. That’s over 1771 minutes per year—six and a half times as much as our previous average of 272.3. Marvel can pump out content this quickly partially because the studio can draw existing characters and plotlines from the Marvel comics, saving time that would normally be spent on character design, writing, and worldbuilding, and partially because of a severe decline in quality. Cutting corners with plot and writing becomes easier when you already have a fanbase that will watch anything your studio puts out.
The way financial and temporal constraints limit creativity in the film industry is getting more and more out of hand. We’ve seen it on sets, in writers’ rooms, in the increasing use of AI in films, and in the recent SAG-AFTRA strikes. Most of all, we’ve seen it on our screens. However, there are glimmers of ingenuity peeking through sequel after adaptation after remake. Films such as “Everything, Everywhere, All at Once” and “Saltburn” are glimpses of true human creativity at work. These recent films with new stories, characters, and places to love are a reprieve from a growingly monotone movie industry.
