Nostalgia and Hollywood

The general public has wondered for quite a few years now, has Hollywood run out of original ideas? With what seems like nothing but adaptations, sequels, and reboots being produced the hearts of young writers are breaking everywhere, and fans of film are simply bored and exhausted. Reboots, and sequels have killed creativity in Hollywood because quite frankly if you only do adaptations then you aren’t an artist. What audiences crave is original thoughts, not regurgitations of old themes and stories.

Though slightly different because it's a franchise, Jurassic World attempted to coast on the success of Jurassic Park. Now the very fundamentals of this franchise was terrible, Jurassic Park showed us that science can go too far and yet we decided to rehash the same idea for some reason. Chris Pratt carried the franchise on his homophobic back, as he coasted on his success from his roles with Marvel. The movies also got misogynistic; a franchise that once featured strong women that were portrayed as such now had their only female character running around in stilettos and drowning in the male gaze. The distaste for the rehashed films was reflected in the box office numbers Jurassic World wasn’t a complete let down grossing 1.6 billion dollars, but its original counterpart grossed a billion more than that. Not to mention that Jurassic World could never have the culture impact that Jurassic Park had.

It is much easier to see in our next example; Top Gun. At first glance there is really no problem in reviving this story, in fact the only real problem is that they didn’t invite Kelly McGillis back which is a huge problem to be clear. Not inviting the only female supporting star of the film back because she didn’t age as Hollywood as Tom Cruise’s botox is extremely sexist and does nothing but reflect the concept in Hollywood that women after a certain age are expendable. Maverick is actually my first real example of nostalgia running Hollywood. The generation that first saw Top Gun when it originally came out were the target audience for this new release, they are also the generation that can’t accept progress or change of any kind. Rehashing old shit is kind of their thing, they also possess most of the money in the US that isn’t controlled by billionaires, add in the fact that the movie was released on Father’s day weekend and Maverick grossed an astounding amount of money. Far more than the original Top Gun, which clocked in at 357.3 million, Top Gun: Maverick grossed 1.4 billion dollars. Now part of that may be due to the quality of the film but the reality is that nostalgia and old guys drove those sales right up. Clearly audiences liked the movie, the concern comes from the fact that sales told Hollywood studios that audiences want to see old stories, and revived characters. It's a very slippery slope, and Hollywood has been on the edge for years now.

One set of movies that proves just how far gone Hollywood has gotten is Ghostbusters. The original movie is widely regarded as one of the greatest movies of all time, and each subsequent attempt at riding its legacy have both declined in quality and box office numbers. Adjusted for inflation the original Ghostbusters film grossed 789 million dollars. When Hollywood attempted to shove fake feminism down our throats the pandering, placating female cast grossed 229 million dollars, losing 70 million after distribution fees were taking. Going down yet again, Ghostbusters : Afterlife, the third film and hopefully last attempt at milking the original film made only 204 million dollars. The films got worse and that was reflected in audience response, proving once again that we as a society want original stories, not rehashed and poorly developed revivals.

How is an aspiring screenwriter supposed to have hope for breaking into the industry when all Hollywood does is tell us that they have no use for new stories and original thoughts. 2022 seems to be a better year for new films and I truly hope that trend continues.