There's nothing wrong with sequels. There's only so much worldbuilding and character development you can do in 2 hours. It's a cool thing that a movie can start in an established world and not have to spend so much screen time building it from scratch.

Of course there are lazy and bad sequels, but there's nothing inherently bad about them and it's become too big of a meme to write them off reflexively.

People on the Internet often say that they want more original movies, but the box office proves that this isn't always the case.

This is why Hollywood keeps making sequels, reboots, and adaptations, because they make more money than original movies.

And for that matter, original movies are still being made - they've just skipped theaters and moved to streaming (again, because they're not as profitable as preexisting IP).

People have voted with their wallets. This is what the general public wants, whether we like it or not.

And almost none of the biggest flops of the year were original films either.

This data is kind of useless when the big production movies were all non originals and we wouldn't expect indie movies to break box office records while people are still struggling financially.

15 - "It Ends With Us" Worldwide gross: $350,986,018 Reported production budget: $25 million

14 -"Twisters" Worldwide gross: $370,962,265 Reported production budget: $155 million

13 - "Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes" Worldwide gross: $397,378,150 Reported production budget: $160 million

12 - "Bad Boys: Ride or Die" Worldwide gross: $404,544,199 Reported production budget: $100 million

11 - "Gladiator II" Worldwide gross: $406,644,901 Reported production budget: $250 million to $300+ million

10 - "Beetlejuice Beetlejuice" Worldwide gross: $451,100,435 Reported production budget: $100 million

9 - "Venom: The Last Dance" Worldwide gross: $476,368,152 Reported production budget: $120 million

8 - "Kung Fu Panda" Worldwide gross: $547,689,492 Reported production budget: $85 million

7 - "Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire" Godzilla in " Worldwide gross: $571,750,016 Reported production budget: $135 million

6 - "Wicked" Worldwide gross: $586,301,620 Reported production budget: $150 million

5 - "Dune: Part Two" Worldwide gross: $714,444,358 Reported production budget: $190 million

4 - "Moana 2" Worldwide gross: $820,990,553 Reported production budget: $150 million

3 - "Despicable Me 4" Worldwide gross: $969,126,452 Reported production budget: $100 million

2 - "Deadpool & Wolverine" Worldwide gross: $1,338,073,645 Reported production budget: $200 million

1 - "Inside Out 2" Worldwide gross: $1,698,765,616 Reported production budget: $200 million

Because the culture is eating itself.

The big studios are not promoting/making original films and the smaller studios don't have enough money to market their films properly

Here's my take. If a movie ticket is $5.00 I'll try something new. Maybe I like it or I don't, but hey, it's $5.00 and I get to tell people how awful it was. If a movie ticket is $20.00 I am not going to play around. I want something I'm already sold on.

But the top grossing movie for 2023 is an original movie, and that's pretty impressive.

Now, if I could only remember what it's called...

I’m gonna sound a little “old man yells at cloud” here, but the majority of original movies are trying to jam way too much into a 2-hour runtime. Characters are dropped into the plot out of nowhere, protagonists change their minds for no apparent reason, 30-second montages are substituted for meaningful emotional beats, the pacing feels rushed after the first half hour, it’s just a mess of stuff happening because the scriptwriter wanted it to. (Or maybe it’s the editor’s fault, idk, I don’t make movies.) A movie is the same length as a short story, not a novel, and trying to do a novel is going to make it feel like a super-long trailer instead of a movie 99% of the time. Critics are gonna pan it and no one is gonna watch it.

Sequels and franchise films can sometimes overcome this by benefit of familiar terrain. You already know the setting, you already know the characters, so we don’t need to spend time on that. It’s a definite advantage.

(The downside is that a lot of sequels forget to tell a story. I didn’t tune in to “hang out” with my favorite superheroes. I was expecting, y’know, an emotionally compelling plot.)

Genuine question: is it bad if movies don’t make a ton of money in theaters? Like, if it goes to streaming, is the assumption then that it won’t make near as much in profit syndicated on some
Streaming platform? There are some
Movies I definitely want to see, original films
Ideally, but I am not a movie theater goer generally, even in the best of scenarios. I’d rather watch at home.

I'm trying to remember a film I wish I would've seen last year, but can't think of anything.