cboath
Master Member
Yeah, but that logic means that they'd rather risk a crapload of money, say the 450M (incl advertising) put into Justice League, where they have to make an unthinkable haul (900M) to simply break even than to invest 50M in something new across the board that, uh, might break even.That's not greed, it's called business. You forget, and I've said dozens of times previously in other threads, Hollywood (outside of indie studios) is not in the business of making movies, they're in the business of making money and movies just happen to be how they make they make their money. So, whatever kind of movie they think is going to make them the most money is the kind of movie they're going to make.
To add to that, there are 2 main factors contributing to the current trend of reboots, remakes, sequels, and prequels (which has been going on for a lot longer than people seem to think). One factor is risk, your Summer blockbuster/tentpole movies (a concept that really didn't exist prior to the release of Jaws or the original Star Wars) have gotten really expensive to produce. They often feature a well known director, at least 1 or 2 big named actors which all drive up the cost of production. As a result, Hollywood has become risk averse because there's a lot of money on the line, too much to risk on a potential flop. So what do they do? They go back to what's worked before, if audiences liked X, then surely they want to see more of X and that's why they make all of these sequels and prequels. That or they want to capitalize on nostalgia and so they do a remake of an older, often, but not always, well known/beloved film or TV show.
The other factor that comes into play is the foreign box office, particularly China, Because of the foreign box office, a movie no longer has to do well in the US to make its money. It can actually not quite make a profit in the US but do extremely well overseas and it's considered a success, enough to warrant a sequel. So Hollywood makes movies that work well overseas, movies with simplified plots but lots of action because action is universal and crosses any and all language barriers. This is also why they like the remake/reboots, for foreign audiences, once again, particularly China, it's new to them. They don't see a remake of some old movie or TV show as ruining a piece of their childhood because it was never a part of their childhood, to begin with. It's just another Hollywood blockbuster to them and that's all that matters to them and to Hollywood.
Seems like business has, like society, gotten very lazy. They shouldn't have to work for the money, it should just be handed to them. They shouldn't try to make something that people want to see or will like - we should just give them money for whatever garbage they want to to dump on us. Marvel did an enormous amount of work and created an amazing universe. Lucasfilm has Star Wars, which again was built on hard work. It's a rarity. Others simply feel as if they're owed one. Those guys have one, we should too! It's not fair we don't have one! So they simply dump garbage out and blame everyone else because they don't have 'a universe'.
Kind of like the simpon's, i'm sure there's some rich twit out there was a room full of monkey's at typewriters trying to find the next great book because they're too lazy to do it themselves. I mean, seriously, We're now rebooting movies and TV shows that haven't been gone 10 years! Seems to be the definition of creatively bankrupt. If you're that risk averse, invest in savings bonds, TV and movies are not for you!