Why has Hollywood lost the ability to produce original content?

[JoanMcWench]

I am tired of remakes. I am tired of parts one to two to three to seventy five but then calling it one again. I do not understand it. Have all good writers died or retired? I am not saying everything was gold in the eighties and early nineties but is it ever good enough to remake and remake again for them now.
So the questions are:

Why has Hollywood lost the ability to produce GOOD original content? Why does it seem the films that are good are not getting the recognition they deserve? Will there be a resurgence of good aggravated writers rising from the ground like zombies to take back what is rightfully theirs?!??!?

 

[OhioTom76]

All the remakes of 70's/80's horror films have been a complete disaster, from Black Christmas to A Nightmare On Elm Street. What's even sadder is the original directors of these films (well, those that are still with us) are also churning out crap movies too. Even if Wes Craven was at the helm of that awful Nightmare remake, he probably would have effed it up just as bad.

I do have some hope however, with directors like Neil Marshall and Gaspar Noe at the helm.

 

[simonli2575]

There's a couple reasons I can think of:
1. The film writers, directors, etc. are all forced to shoot it before a set date, giving them little to no time to create good and original contents.
2. Hollywood wants more money, seeing how easy it seems to make a remake, they decided to tell the writers to do so.
I don't think all hope is lost though, we just probably have to wait for quite some time to get an original film from Hollywood.

 

[ajdunn]

Blame the consumer instead of the provider. There Will Be Blood made $40 million at the box office, Transformers 3 made $350 million at the box office. If more people watched smart, original films, Hollywood would make more smart, original films.

As to where all the good writers went: TV.

 

[JoanMcWench]

@ajdunn: You could not be more correct about television far surpassing anything in a theater as of late. The originality and the risks and the great character development has gone the way of the tiny screen. I also feel like Netflix is making its mark in the writing game as well. Their original content winning Emmys over shows on actual television was a slap to executives faces.

 

[ajdunn]

@ajdunn: You could not be more correct about television far surpassing anything in a theater as of late. The originality and the risks and the great character development has gone the way of the tiny screen. I also feel like Netflix is making its mark in the writing game as well. Their original content winning Emmys over shows on actual television was a slap to executives faces.

I think you also need to factor in the way TV viewing habits have changed over the past decade. With DVD box sets, PVRs and now streaming services like Netflix, people have more patience for complex, multi-stranded dramas like Breaking Bad or Boardwalk Empire. I dunno about other people, but the only way I watch these shows is by stacking up a whole season on my PVR and watching the whole lot over a couple of days. That's why these shows get a lot of hype and the networks feel confident in investing in great writing without dumbing it down.

 

[mauricioq]

People nowadays get satisfied with little.
Image is what sells now, a movie just needs pretty girls to sell, originality is getting lost and people consume whatever they see advertised, if it continues to sell why change?
I'm sticking with series.

 

[KellyValentine]

I was thinking the same exact think. With the release of the remake Carrie, I didn't understand why this was even happening. Why not just make a new awesome scary movie to release around Halloween instead of a remake.

 

[BioLee]

They are using this formula because this way they have to pay less money to the writers because it's just an adaptation and not an entire full script and also when remaking something that already a huge success there's a bigger chance it will profit overall because most people know how to expect from the movie. If it was a new movie they had to count the probability of people not seeing it because they don't want to risk seeing something in the cinema ( especially with the current ticket prize ) and not liking it.