Remake kingdom: has Hollywood lost the plot?

Susannah Guthrie
Jun 09, 2015, updated Jun 10, 2015

“There is no such thing as a new idea.”

Mark Twain said it, now Hollywood is living it.

It seems as though 2015 is officially the year of the remake. Never before have we seen so few original concepts coming out of the world’s creative hub.

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So far this year, eight remakes have been or will be released into cinemas. By the end of the year, at least 14 sequels will have hit the screen.

What’s more, of the top-10 highest-grossing movies of the year so far, not one of them is original.

Four are sequels (Avengers: Age of Ultron, Furious 7, Pitch Perfect 2, Divergent: Insurgent), two are remakes (Cinderella, Mad Max: Fury Road) and four are based on existing books, comics or television shows (Home, Fifty Shades of Grey, The Spongebob Movie: Sponge Out of Water, Kingsman: Secret Service).

Avengers: Age of Ultron is the highest-grossing movie of the year so far.

Worse? We, the audience, are to blame.

The big studios aren’t exactly forcing these flicks down the throats of unwilling viewers. Rather, our hunger for these do-overs is what is driving their proliferation.

“Ultimately audiences decide,” Mike Baard, Managing Director of Universal Pictures Australasia, told The New Daily.

“Why do you go back to your favourite restaurant or order your favourite drink? It’s because you have a particular taste for it.

“[Right now] is a moment in time where audiences are indicating to some extent what they’d like to see.”

Movies now look and feel the same as those past, like the 2015 remake of National Lampoon’s Vacation (original at bottom).

However, Mr Baard acknowledges that there is a limit to how much we can take.

“Sometimes when you get to number three or four you’ve outlasted the audience’s patience. That’s why there’s no The Hangover 4 coming,” Mr Baard reasons.

It’s an unpredictable game, one that can produce turkeys or winners.

“We had a small movie a few years ago called Pitch Perfect which really broke out and audiences were clamouring for more,” Mr Baard says of this year’s breakout hit Pitch Perfect 2 which has grossed more than $200 million worldwide.

As for the rest of the year, here’s how the schedule is shaping up in terms of remakes, reboots and sequels. Feast your eyes.