Why Hollywood Produces Unoriginal Movies

For the last few years I have been depressed at the sort of movies which have been put out on general release. If it's not another sequel it's a remake or a brand new movie which in reality is no more than a rehash of a series of other movies. It certainly feels that there is a distinct lack of originality coming out of good old Hollywood these days, so much so that they are even willing to add an extra movie to franchises which are long past their sell by date.

But why is this? Have all the good ideas for movies been done and so the Hollywood movie making machine only have the ability to rehash those old tried and trusted storylines. Maybe it's that the current crop of ideas men have watched so many movies themselves that when they do come up with something they think is new and fresh it turns out that it as an unintentional rehash of what they’ve seen before.

Whilst I think there may be a certain amount of truth in these statements they are not what I perceive to be the only reason. If you look away from the commercially released movies, there is a good stream of new movies which are original and differ quite significantly from the norm. It's just that these movies tend not to be backed by a mass of publicity and so get much lower profile releases, often slipping under the radar of your average movie goer.

What I believe is happening and something we forget is that movie making is a business and for a business to succeed they need to provide what the masses desire. Unfortunately that means that the majority of movie releases generally stick to a tried and trusted formula because you know that is what the mass market wants.

Just take a look at the rom-com genre I would estimate that well over 90% of movie releases which fit into this category follow a pretty predictable formula and also feature the same stars. Why, because if it worked once before and made money then it is likely going to work again and make more money. It’s not just the rom-com genre that suffers this as it is pretty much all of them.

So it's not really the fault of Hollywood for the lack of original movies it is the fact that movie goers know what they like, want more of what they like and so don't mind if they watch movies which are uninspired by their lack of originality. If only Hollywood would take a risk once in a while and try to push something different on us.

Andy Webb writes movies reviews covering anything from the classics through to modern. To read reviews by Andy Webb at The Movie Scene.