As fans, we’ve been feeling this for a while now – asking ourselves and each other, “Why can’t Hollywood come up with anything new? I’m tired of them rehashing the same-old same-old!” Well now, someone has looked at this from a financial perspective, and has come to the same conclusion. Sequels and remakes are on their way out.
Financial analyst, Vasily Karasyov, has released a report in which he asserts that films based on already-existing properties are starting to become less assuredly profitable, believing us to be at “the tail end of the process” with regard to remakes, adaptations, and sequels. He argues that, since we’ve already remade most of the more valuable and recognizable properties, that profits will only decline as studios struggle to adapt lesser-known franchises that will likely do less well.
According to Deadline Hollywood:
Case in point: 2002’s Spider-Man generated $822 million in worldwide box office and sold 69 million tickets domestically. In 2007 Spider-Man 3 has $891 million in sales, but with 49 million domestic ticket sales. And last year’s The Amazing Spider-Man 2 was the weakest of the bunch with $709 in global sales, and 22 million in domestic admissions.
Karasyov also points to Disney’s Marvel. Its Avengers: Age Of Ultron generated more than $1.4 billion worldwide, falling to $774 million for Guardians Of The Galaxy, $715 million for Captain America: The Winder Soldier, and $401 million for Ant-Man.
What’s interesting is that, over at i09, they excuse a lot of that financial decline by blaming the timing of the films, or the quality. The thing is, the fact that they were reboots, or adaptations of existing work, or sequels affects how people respond to things like quality or release dates. If they had been original films, people wouldn’t have been suffering from fatigue, so timing wouldn’t have been an issue, and they wouldn’t have known what to expect quality-wise if it were something new and different, so they may have been more likely to spend money on tickets to have a new experience, rather than skipping the sequel all together, because they weren’t thrilled by the first one.
It’s time for Hollywood to stop expecting that we’ll be so excited by the familiar. Maybe we were once, when this onslaught of superhero movies and bestseller adaptations and everything being a trilogy was shiny and new – but not anymore. The most telling quote of Karasyov’s is “The nature of any IP re-exploitation cycle (be it DVD, CDs, iTunes or superheroes) is such that despite how long it lasts, it ultimately fades.”
In other words – every trend has an expiration date, no matter how far out.
—Please make note of The Mary Sue’s general comment policy.—
Do you follow The Mary Sue on Twitter, Facebook, Tumblr, Pinterest, & Google +?
