So… Disney’s making a second Moana and another Inside Out. The second movie in the Ghostbusters reboot just got released, and we’re somehow getting a ninth Planet of the Apes movie. What’s going on? (Seriously, who watches Planet of the Apes?)
Everyone’s noticed it at this point: it seems like all we’re getting is remakes, reimaginings, and a lot of re-hashed ideas.
Looking through the top 50 movies recommended by Google by searching “Movies coming out in —-/from —-”, the amount of sequels and remakes has spiked. In just the results for 2024, the amount of sequels and prequels has nearly quintupled from 2019 and 2014 combined.
Granted, Google results for movie lists can be weird. I mean, for 2019 it didn’t show Avengers: Endgame or Joker, two of the highest-grossing movies for the year, and for 2014, it didn’t show any of the movies you might think of, like Guardians of the Galaxy or The Lego Movie. The algorithm is strange.
Though it plagues every genre, horror has a particular problem with reusing old material— not even just in big-budget spaces, as seen with analog horror online— but recently it seems like a lot of big studio creativity has been drained. Every time there’s a hit, people jump on the train to ride that high, whether by making more of the same under the same name or just trying to recreate it.
“I believe that the current state of horror varies from company to company, it’s quite a complicated issue. As someone very passionate about it, I have been very disappointed with many modern horror films due to the oversaturation of artistic horror films attempting to bank off of the popularity of films like Hereditary, as well as remakes banking off the fame of old classics. What we aren’t seeing is more unique and original films and ideas,” said VPAA junior Marlee Thimons.
Maybe it’s all about profit. Even if sequels and remakes end up bad, they’ll still make money, and this has been proven over and over again. According to BoxOfficeMojo, every year since 1999 at least two sequels or prequels have been in the top ten highest-grossing movies. In fact, in 2003, 2014, and 2022, eight of the top ten highest-grossing movies were sequels or prequels.
I mean, Disney was so ahead of the curve that they’ve been pumping out cheap sequels and prequels for decades. In my opinion, everybody who owned copies of Cinderella 2: Dreams Come True or Cinderella 3: A Twist In Time should be entitled to financial compensation (or at least, our parents and guardians should be).
Disney is often where people point the blame for this trend. While yes, there are other influences, Disney is certainly one of the bigger ones. With their uninspired and consistently drab-looking live-action remakes they’ve pioneered a trend of remaking animated movies, both old and new, in live-action.
Even people who aren’t regular movie theater-goers or movie fanatics like me have started complaining about this. Countless video essays and infinitely more social media posts are complaining about the content most studios are pushing out being recycled or blatant cash grabs.
Not all hope is lost, however! While the statement “indie is always better” doesn’t always apply, it seems to for movies right now. Indie movies and smaller productions are the diamonds in the rough at the moment. Two movies from earlier this year that I haven’t seen get the attention they deserve are Marmalade, a movie about a man who’s been incarcerated telling the story of how he met Marmalade and got sent to prison, and Late Night with the Devil, a fake late-night broadcast from Halloween, 1977, where one of the guests makes the whole show unravel. It’s also been described as “a shining light [for modern horror]” by Thimons, which is high praise for as big a horror fan as she is.
Don’t take this as an attack on sequels or remakes, they can be great! Movies like Puss in Boots: The Last Wish and Wonka are both incredible movies and though neither are recent, The Thing and The Fly are both remakes and are some of the best 80’s horror movies. It’s not like original ideas are always great either, we all saw the ads for Strays. Sorry, not sorry if you like that movie.
In the end, the people are going through a remake/sequel burnout.
“We need to stop catering to nostalgia, and start making new nostalgia,” said Thimons.
Movies can be— and are great— but only when creatives are being given chances to do creative things, which it seems like is being limited now. No matter what happens though, unfortunately for all of us, we do know that we’ll never be able to reach the same level of sequel greatness as we achieved in Alvin and The Chipmunks: The Squeakquel. In the meantime, all we can do is hope.
