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.
this post was submitted on 03 Jan 2025
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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.
I really prefer movies to television because they are conventionally self-contained stories without the baggage of lore or familiar characters.
Give me a Hitchcock movie any day over something with a 3 hour runtime and a "universe" it expects me to be familiar with.
I'd rather watch serial TV shows. Give me a 10 hour "movie" with obvious stopping points, and a plot that is better than solving some inane crime in two hours.
If they can guarantee that they'll finish the story, I'm on board with the shows. But most of the time, the story is either cut short or it's extended indefinitely. In film, you can usually bet that by the end, the major plot points will be resolved. You can't say the same about television (at least when it comes to series that explore a single storyline throughout as opposed to sitcoms that have more self-contained episodes).
There are obviously exceptions in both cases, but I've been bit enough times by good shows that raised a bunch of questions right before being canceled.
This is why I typically enjoy shows more than movies. It's pretty hard to make me care about the characters in 90 min.
I love the juxtaposition of this with the comment saying they prefer movies over shows. I like that people enjoy stories differently.
I completely understand them liking self-contained, complete stories, but I'm definitely in your camp. I like shows that I can immerse myself in and really get to know how the characters and universe tick. That's probably why I gravitate towards sci-fi and fantasy. To me, the worldbuilding and lore is the point.
It's amazing when they do though. Fargo is 90 minutes, I love short movies that are just so good
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Also, with everything being so expensive when you wanna see a movie, do you pick one where you have a pretty good idea what you're getting into or do you risk it on new IP? I still love going to the cinema, but it's so expensive that I am very picky and only go once or twice a year.
i know the metaphor isnt 1:1 but i'm not upset when there's a second season of a tv show I liked, and I don't consider it lazy to use the same characters to tell a new story.
also it's kind of a no-brainer for general audiences. why take a risk paying for a ticket to something I might not like, when I can see something I know I do like, only new?
these films have much bigger budget allocations than most (if not all) of a studio's original slate, so a built-in audience ensures at least some ROI.
that doesn't mean i'm happy about it, gambling on new stories should be more profitable than gambling with a $250m budget. but the latter has been a proven strategy, at least at the moment.
instead of a 4-decade-long dead-horse-beating the people complaining need to take a deep breath and go and support indie and original cinema themselves.
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.
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.)
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.
I'm gonna sound like a dick and expect downvotes for this but the average person is dumb and easy to entertain
The average person is tired from having to work themselves to exhaustion just to support themselves and their family. Often they just want something easy to watch, without the commitment of something with more depth.
And the people who complain about wanting original films on the Internet are also dumb and refuse to seek them out or go see them in the theater.
Nobody is saying original films don't exist. People just want them to get the big budget treatment. We want Disney, Sony, and all the others to dump millions into high quality original content in addition to the plethora of smaller original films we currently consume.
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It's not an issue of intelligence or what people are entertained by, it's an issue of what attracts people to a theater and pay lots of money before the film comes to streaming. Not everyone cares for or can afford a regular theater experience anymore, particularly for lower key films.
I tried my best to not believe this but the moment I'm watching alien romulus and when the the get away from her you bitch line came up and everyone cheered in the theater. Is the day my hope for other humans died when it came to film.
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Unoriginal films have the benefit of having already paid a huge part of the marketing costs. When you hear "Super Mario Brothers: The Movie" or "Avengers: Some Multiverse" you already have an idea of what the movie is about.
Contrast this with the movie Megalopolis, where I had no idea what the movie was even about, and the trailer answered very few of my questions. It tried to sell the movie on the power/ego of the director and the cast. But that's not gonna make people take a chance on it, especially when movie tickets are so expensive
But that's not gonna make people take a chance on it, especially when movie tickets are so expensive
This is why original movies do better on streaming, where there is a low barrier for entry. Because if you don't like it, at least it cost you nothing, and you can stop watching aat any time.
And you don't have to put pants on
Is that why they kicked me out of the theater?
Because big budget films are not designed to be good, they're designed to make money. And to do that that need to be inoffensive and easy to consume by the lowest common denominator. Which almost always makes then mediocre.
People on the Internet and people going to the box offices are very different demographics.
The Simpsons had this nailed down a long time ago with the Comic Book Guy. Chronically online grown-ass men disgusted that content not made for them had no appeal to them. And everyone must hear about the injustice.
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Yes and we want more steak and fewer Big Macs. Yet people are out there still buying Big Macs. Is it because Big Macs are better than steak? Or is something else going on?
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The big studios are not promoting/making original films and the smaller studios don't have enough money to market their films properly
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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...
Very memorable performance, lead deserved an Oscar nom at the very least.
Maybe next year.
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
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I'm trying to remember a film I wish I would've seen last year, but can't think of anything.
The Substance was so good seeing in a packed theater and feeling the energy of everyone having the same wtf reactions. I guess the moment is over but highly recommended.
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People shit on the lack of original movies, then a studio like Disney releases a bunch of new original movies and nobody watches them. Just about every original film released by big studios bombs, then people wonder why they don't do em.
They don't do them because they do poorly, and they do poorly because they suck at doing original (the majority of all Disney films aren't original all the way back to snow white)
Disney released a new and original movie?
When? Back in 2000?
Could’ve sworn “Inside Out” was original and a huge hit. But then Disney will beat that dead horse with multiple sequels and direct to video releases and spin offs like they do with anything that is successful.
Inside Out that was released in 2015? I guess the clock is right once a decade.
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Yes, if the movies suck then it's still a problem. We want good original movies, not shitty ones.
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