Has Hollywood run out of original ideas for movies?

I know my husband always says that there are about 12 plots he counted that get rehashed every season and that’s that

I think they ran out of ideas LONG AGO. All of the public is catching on now (you know…“you can fool all of the people some of the time, some of the people all of the time, but you can’t fool ALL of the people ALL of the time”)!

Notice how many movies are coming out in 3D or IMAX now?? They’re NOT trying to get people in using creativity, but instead, dumb gimmicks.

The movies of today are a big yawn. I say go back to a good western or a comedy that IS a comedy. But, all the great comedians are dead. There’s no one around anymore to make a good movie. Altho Public Enemies with Johnny Depp looks good. ANYTHING with JD looks good.

All the remakes show just how desperate they are to put something on the screen. Pitiful.

I think movie business follows where the money is. When a type of movie comes out and does well, they are more inclined to do the same type of movie.

I don’t think so. As the world changes there will be new topics to make movies about. I agree with @fish4answers in that the movie makers are more in the business of making money than the business of provoking thought and entertaining. Independent movies tend to be more creative.

The human mind will never run out of new creative ideas. But Hollywood is a business as @fish4answers already pointed out and trying new stuff is risky.

People love superhero movies, as evidenced by their box office performance. Since the plot and story and characters already exist, it’s trivial to simply make the movie, especially when CG is so easy to do nowadays. Movie making is a business, and to reduce their creativity costs while reaping huge profits is a smart business move!

Not all companies do this. Pixar doesn’t. They love making up new stories and ideas. They are also very successful and make lots of money, but their overhead, time and work put in is much more than what’s put in to a superhero flick. Then again sometimes it’s a different style of work, animating versus acting, etc.

There will never be a lack of ideas, it’s simply that it’s more profitable at this time to rehash than to create from new. Also note that people love superheroes in general, these characters exist, same with Transformers, they gain a certain percentage of views simply due to nostalgia and loving the characters, you don’t get this when you create a new franchise or single movie. Continuing, sequels and franchises are where companies make lots of money (again not having to reinvent the characters etc) versus a set of one-off stories that aren’t related, unless the director is well known (Tarentino) or the movie has a great advertising campaign, which of course costs money.

It all comes down to money. That is of course, until amateur and indie filmmakers start creating cool movies on their own computers and bypassing the need for going to a cinema and partner with a financial backer altogether. This will come of course, just as it is slowly establishing itself for music. Yay technology!

I think they should go back and re-make all the bad and failed movies. Like, “Yor” or “Ice Pirates” or something.

I think I have some pretty new ideas that haven’t been done to be honest, I don’t know the first thing about how to get into that business though, still always kind of wanted to.

Twilight was a new idea, and look how much it sucked. Hollywood needs an influx of people with real ideas, and a new group of producers with the balls to take new and innovative ideas without considering the financial aspect. Won’t happen, and I know of plenty of people with great ideas (myself included) that would make great films, but Hollyweird would only screw them up by following formulaic ‘safe’ genres.

@evelyns_pet_zebra: Twilight was not a new idea, it was based off a novel.

It does seem a bit like that doesn’t it? people still go and watch them tho so i guess they will keep making them..i suspect that a lot of the super hero/fantasy type movies do so well at the moment because in a recession and time when there’s lots of bad stuff happening globally people want escapism and familiarity

Yes and the music industry has run out of songs.

The problem is that we are so blended as a society. Having become so sophisticated, we are a society of seen it and know it all. Nothing is exciting or new. So we end up reconstituting old ideas.

First of all, Hollywood has always made film adaptions of novels. But they should stop it with the horror movie remakes. Like for an example, that Dawn of the Dead remake. I don’t care what anyone says, I thought it sucked huge donkey balls.

depends on what you mean by ‘hollywood’. i think that most hyped movies are just repeats of the same ideas, but with different characters and new slang.
but there are still more original movies out there. they’re just not frequently talked about.

Solomon wrote 5,000 years ago that “there is nothing new under the sun”. 400 years ago, Shakespeare made hay using older stories pilfered from historical events and old folklore. 20 years ago, I read an article written by a Hollywood screenwriter who admitted that he got his story ideas from a published catalog of existing films. He worked through the list in alphabetical order, taking the plots of existing films as the plot of his next project. I’m sure not all writers do that, but it gives you an idea of what goes on behind the scenes in a lot of cases.

The best stories, the most enduring, are about the same things they have always been; struggle against the odds, life, love, death, disappointment, pain, suffering. The settings, and the technology, and the specific social circumstances change, but that is largely window dressing for the same ancient human stories.

originality never really existed, everyone gained inspiration from somewhere.

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 well I dont think originality and inspiration from elsewhere are mutually exclusive – you and I can both be inspired by the Body exhibit except that you will start to knit hearts and sell them on ETSY and I may want to eat someone’s remains or something…you know that kind of thing

I think the only place where new ideas are still being developed is the sci-fi genre.

I don’t mind a new take on an old idea, but how many times do you need to reboot a franchise? Like Batman, Superman, The Punisher, etc. They aren’t even waiting for the old corpse to get cold before they start on a new “beginning.”

@Simone_De_Beauvoir pegged me as a knitter? :P

@ABoyNamedBoobs03 Indeed I did, lol

@mrentropy: The Hulk movies are the worst offender in that category.Only 5 years between The Incredible Hulk and Hulk!

@erichw1504 in all fairness though the first one was awful, for the sake of the comic books they almost had to do another one. and I thought it was pretty good.

Old boy was good
Haven’t read the manga

@Simone_De_Beauvoir lol been called a lot of things but no one ever really thought of me as inclined to knit hearts.

I think ideas are everywhere. Plenty of good movie plots and storylines out there. But hollywood movies cater for the general and the objective is to gain profit more than anything else. Take “oldboy” , a korean movie and is well praised movie by critics for its originality as an example, how many people in the public would actually appreciate the context that is presented by the movie. To some it might seem to be a lunatic and incense movie. To others, it’s something fresh and original.

Hollywood ain’t the only fish in the sea. What about foreign films? There are a huge number of wonderful movies out there. Films don’t have to be super recent, filmmaking has been going on for so long. Lots of great films to watch!