UPDATE: Hat tip to Ross Douthat for highlighting an intriguing recent NYMag.com piece on Hollywood’s originality problem. Some highlights:
With Sequels and Reboots Failing, Hollywood (Finally) Puts Out a Desperate Call for Original Material
Conventional wisdom in Hollywood of late has said that you should stick to familiar brands when making movies. It could be a sequel or an adaptation of an old TV show, board game, toy, or crumpled candy wrapper, just as long as people already know it. So how’s that working out? In a summer season where only three out of the fourteen major releases so far have come from a new idea, attendance is down 13.3 percent from last season … That’s why studio execs at Warner Bros., Paramount/DreamWorks, and Universal are now madly pinging agents and managers with an uncharacteristic, desperate, and welcome request: Send us your fresh material!
… It’s no wonder panic is in the air, considering how moviegoers are rebelling. “People are feeling marketed to, as opposed to catered to,” says JC Spink, a partner in the management and production company Benderspink and one of the executive producers of last summer’s surprise original hit, The Hangover. “I think we’ve all gone a little bit overboard as an industry. There hasn’t been room for original material for a little while now. It’s a shame, because I don’t think it’s what anyone [who works in the business] came out here for.”
Admitting you have a problem, of course, is the first step to recovery.
The rest of the piece is worth reading, as is Douthat’s post, which points out that only two of the 25 highest-grossing movies of the last decade weren’t adaptations of an existing property (the outliers being Finding Nemo and of course Avatar).
Titled “Did ‘Jaws’ and ‘Star Wars’ Ruin Hollywood?”, Douthat’s piece takes on grumpy jeremiads by John Podhoretz and David Edelstein laying the blame for Hollywood’s creative malaise and addiction to empty spectacle at the doorstep of Steven Spielberg and George Lucas. Having made some of the same arguments Douthat does, I cheerfully support his line of thought.
Original post follows.
Is Hollywood literally out of ideas?
In this summer of sequels, adaptations and remakes, tomorrow’s Knight and Day, an action-comedy-romance starring Tom Cruise and Cameron Diaz, is a bit of an anomaly: While it owes an obvious debt to similar films from Mr. & Mrs. Smith and True Lies to Romancing the Stone and even Charade, it’s an “original” story in the formal sense of not being an extension of any existing franchise.
That doesn’t make it a good film, but it’s a point worth noting in the film’s press notes. Publicity people writing press notes have to hype a film any way they can; if you’re marketing a known brand name, you sell that, and if you aren’t, then you sell that too. Even so, I was a bit struck by the spin on non-franchise status in the press notes for Knight and Day:
Unlike most action films of this scope, Knight and Day did not begin as a comic book, TV series or franchise property—but as a spec script by Patrick O’Neill.
Then there’s this comment from producer Cathy Konrad, who is married to director James Mangold:
Konrad was drawn to Knight and Day by the story’s originality. “It’s hard to find fresh material that isn’t superhero based or something like that,” she observes.
Now, I’m no kind of movie business insider. I’ve been to Hollywood a few times, but only within the orchestrated media context of a press junket. I know something about the craft of moviemaking, but on the business side of things all I know, or I think I know, is what I’ve seen in movies about Hollywood.
So I’m struck, first of all, that the press notes bother to say that Knight and Day began with a “spec script.” “Spec” means that the screenwriter wasn’t hired to write the story—that he wrote it in the hope of selling it to someone who liked it.
I would have thought, perhaps naively, that most movies began that way: a writer with an idea. Of course it happens the other way too: Producers with established products hire writers (sometimes many, many writers) to slap together a script around that product. But that can’t be the norm, can it?
Even with respect to big-budget action movies, while I can understand producers having a preference for brand-name adaptations, remakes and sequels over something new, surely among writers there would be a general preference to create something new, right? And, therefore, producers looking for “fresh material” should have an easy time finding it? Right?
Even if market considerations — not to mention the guaranteed paycheck of a contract job — lead many writers to churn out scripts for brand-name material, you’d think the creative impulse must motivate countless screenwriters (and screenwriting hopefuls), not to churn out, but to lovingly craft and painstakingly polish stories of every conceivable shape and size. Wouldn’t you?
Even if it were a known industry fact that there’s no market in Hollywood for original action scripts, surely creative chutzpah—without which half the worthwhile art in the world wouldn’t exist—rides high enough in all markets that countless writers believe that their original action script will be different?
And while a great many of these will in fact be trash — though no worse than countless scripts that actually become movies — surely at least some of them will be good, and a few better than good? How can a producer say it’s “hard to find fresh material”?
I dunno, maybe it’s just publicity hype. (Half the time I suspect those press-note “quotations” are made up by publicists or agents or somebody. Depending on the film, press notes seldom offer actually useful information beyond plot synopsis and filmmaker info, although if there’s actually an interesting story behind the making of a film the notes can be invaluable.)
Still, I’m struck that the pervasiveness of comic-book movies comes up twice. I’m a lifelong comic-book fan, but I’d prefer fewer comic-book movies rather than more—especially now that studios are actually digging up obscure properties like this past weekend’s Jonah Hex, a total non-event panned by critics and ignored by audiences.
Jonah Hex? I can understand wanting to do a Batman or Spider-Man movie; I can even understand green-lighting big-screen versions of less universally known characters like Ghost Rider or Green Arrow. But Jonah Hex? At what point does scraping the bottom of the franchise barrel actually make less sense than doing something new?
Are there really no better options out there for people in Hollywood with money to spend? Where are the writers? What are they doing?
These are real questions; I don’t know the answers.
Thoughts?
Comments
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I have often thought that the dearth of quality movies is somehow linked to our refusal to accept life. Contraception has impacted on our lives in so many ways - lack of vocations, smaller families, abortions, etc.. We have surrounded ourselves with death and as a result we cannot see life and all it brings - creativity, joy and humor (except at the cost of others).
We cannot be original because we have prevented true originality (birth) to cease except under our rules, our science and our limits!
Just a thought.
There’s a saying that says there’s no such thing as an original idea. I completely agree; after all, most stories do share common threads (the hero, the villain, some sort of quest, etc.). Variations of a similar idea, so long as they are well-done, are OK by me. But Hollywood isn’t even trying to do THAT. They’re just recycling the same old ideas, in increasingly stupid ways, under the rallying cry of “it sells” (which is apparently why there are about SEVEN “Saw” movies). Not to be too judgmental of the film industry, but I don’t think ideas that are interesting or worth watching are what Hollywood wants. Ideas that could make money are what Hollywood wants, even if it means making ANOTHER inane “superhero” movie with a guy in tights, his questionably dressed girlfriend, and a hardly threatening villain. It’s just another aspect of the “selling out to get famous/rich” disease that is ruining our pop culture. I can only pray that Hollywood realizes what they’re doing so I won’t be forced to watch Pixar movies for the rest of my life.
“Better to write for yourself and have no public than to write for the public and have no self.” –Cyril Connolly
SDG, what do you have against Jonah Hex (the character, not the movie)? He’s on the same level as Ghost Rider or Green Arrow—a character who has sustained various series over the years as the lead character. Making a film about this character (however badly) is not the same as making a film about, say, Matter-Eater Lad or Ant-Man.
I watched “Murder, My Sweet” a couple of days ago, which is based on Raymond Chandler’s “Farewell, My Lovely”. A quick perusal of the local library shows hundreds of books that could be adapted.
I think Hollywould gravitates to comic-books (excuse me, Graphic Novels) because so much of the thinking has already been done for them—words and visuals! And not to disagree with the esteemed Mr. Akin, but until the movie promos aired, I’d never heard of Jonah Hex; I have heard of Ant-man!
Brian
Even when Hollywood has a not-too-bad comedy or romance that’s just about relationships and everyday people, they blow it by having the couple in the sack within the first 20 minutes. Don’t they realize that what made the old black and whites and the rare modern flick so enjoyable is the romantic tension in a relationship where the couple know they can’t just indulge every whim.
Jimmy! Nice of you to drop by. If I’d known that slighting a Western comic-book character would motivate you to comment, I’d have done it sooner! :-D
I’ve got nothing against Jonah Hex the character (I did read a Jonah Hex comic at least once or twice in my youth, and I was aware of the recent comic series) but in terms I would have thought that Ghost Rider was more “mainstream” than Jonah Hex in terms of general marketability and probably mainstream brand awareness (which I would have thought was somewhat supported by GR getting a movie deal first).
I could be wrong, though. Judging by Google hits, Jonah Hex scores twice as high as Ghost Rider—and that’s years after a movie that, while not a big success, may be getting a sequel (I think we can safely dismiss the possibility of a JH sequel). This seems ... wrong to me, but I guess I could be wrong. Perhaps my perception is colored by when I was reading comics and my reading habits.
Likewise, I wouldn’t have put Ant-Man in quite the same league of obscurity as Matter-Eater Lad (which I expect is partly borne out by the fact that Ant-Man has a movie deal and M-E L doesn’t)—and here Google hits bears me out by more than an order of magnitude.
Perhaps in both cases I consider Ghost Rider and Ant-Man to be more “mainstream” than, respectively, Jonah Hex and M-E L in part because they’re both integrated into the main continuity of their respective corporations’ main universes. Thus GR and A-M are contemporaries of current-day Spider-Man, Fantastic Four, Avengers, X-Men and so on, while JH and M-E L are not in the same way current-day contemporaries of the current-day Justice League, Teen Titans, etc. Then again, maybe it’s partly my general Marvel bias! :-D
I actually write spec screenplays and TV pilots.
Why Hollywood is doing lots of comic-book based films is pretty simple.
Studio film are enormously expensive yet there is no way to predict if an audience will go for an original story. Therefore, studios go for material with an already-established audience, such as a best-selling novel, a popular TV show, a well-known comic book character, a sequel to a successful film, a remake of an existing film, or anything with a big star attached.
Comic books are especially popular with studios because the young male demographic goes for them.
“Why Hollywood is doing lots of comic-book based films is pretty simple.”
Yes, my post acknowledges this. But this is producer thinking, not writer thinking. If a producer is looking for “fresh material,” I would think there would be a ready supply of talented writers and promising original scripts, especially with most of the money chasing after established properties.
Steve, thank you for your thoughtful reply to my prior comment.
I bow to your superior knowledge of the Marvel Universe. I wasn’t happy with the Ant-Man comparison myself. Perhaps you can suggest a better one. I was looking for someone who doesn’t carry titles by himself (or herself) but who has been around for a long time as part of a team as a kind of back bencher.
Perhaps one of the lesser characters belonging to the Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel’s original takeoff on the Legion.
Go Matter-Eater Lad!
“But this is producer thinking, not writer thinking.” I don’t follow you.
“If a producer is looking for “fresh material,” I would think there would be a ready supply of talented writers and promising original scripts, especially with most of the money chasing after established properties.” If the money is chasing established properties, then it is not looking for promising original scripts.
I don’t think there are very many producers who can discover an original script and put together the money to make it.
“It’s hard to find fresh material that isn’t superhero based or something like that,” Konrad observes.
Steven, you’re right to scratch your head at Konrad’s remark.
There are hundreds—probably thousands—of spec writers exploring every story angle under the sun.
We live in a bankrupt culture. We spend much of our liesure time distracting ourselves with shallow, if not degrading, entertainment. Few people grow up studying real literature. And of those, is it not almost always some form of post-modern deconstructionism? It is rare to find an adult-aged male who has achieved full manhood or female who has achieved womanhood. To expect such people to write anything with more than comic-book-level pathos and drama is beyond wishful thinking.
“‘But this is producer thinking, not writer thinking.’ I don’t follow you.
Kevin, see your own comment from your next post: “There are hundreds—probably thousands—of spec writers exploring every story angle under the sun.”
That’s all I’m saying.
@SDG & JA: In a world where Blue Beetle gets his own live-action TV show, I guess anything is possible when it comes to lesser-known franchise heroes.
That said, there’s still plenty of story innovation going on in the videogame world, where originality still counts for something and making a game based on a (non-game) franchise is practically the kiss of death (if not in terms of sales, then certainly in terms of critical and hardcore gamer esteem). You may not like the medium, but I would put the story in “Bioshock” or even the first “Super Mario Galaxy” up against what I know about “Splice” or any Dreamworks Animation feature repectively. Though of course, they’re making a Bioshock movie now, which is pretty much destined to be terrible.
@victor: You have a very valid point. A lot of video games have gotten to the point that, in design, music, and script, they’re better than the stuff Hollywood’s churning out. Maybe Hollywood should start thinking like the gaming industry: “Let’s raise the bar so unbelievably high up the awesome scale that people will just HAVE to buy it!”
Or, as long as we’re going to make something based off a franchise, how about a franchise that’s actually interesting? (The Lord of the Rings being turned into a movie is a prime example of that.) OR if they’re going to make a movie based off the book, why don’t they actually FOLLOW THE BOOK? They would get SO many ticket sales if they just followed the book!
Screech the Mighty wrote “if they’re going to make a movie based off the book, why don’t they actually FOLLOW THE BOOK?”
In most cases, a screenwriter can’t just follow the book. Screenplays and novels are different genres. Novels tend to take place in characters’ heads, whereas movies are only sights and sounds.
In a successful film adaptation of a novel, the writer has discovered the inner core intellectual and emotional truths of the book and is able to present them according to the story structure rules of a screenplay.
@Kevin Aldrich: I get that novels and screenplays are two different things, so the movie is never going to be completely like the book. What I don’t get are why screenwriters feel the need to completely change the plot, take out vital characters, etc. For instance, Eragon the book versus Eragon the movie. You’d swear that the screenwriters only read the synopsis on the back before they started writing it. Same thing for the Inkheart and Ella Enchanted movies. And, while I’m not a die-hard LOTR fan, I really do not get why they didn’t even put Tom Bobadil (did I spell that right?) in the EXTENDED version.
@Screech: Try writing one and you’ll see why!
I’ve met one of the four writers who wrote the script for IRON MAN. The producers hired two teams of writers at the same time who wrote two separate screenplays. Then the producers wove the two scripts together.
Weird, eh?
@Anyone who wonders why screenplays can’t be more like novels: read the chapter from Robert McKee’s “Story” on adaptations and you’ll gain a much better appreciation for the challenges involved with adapting a book to the screen. It’s not quite as bad as dancing about architecture, but it can come pretty close.
It’s true that motion pictures, and by extension screenplays, are a different art form than a novel, and that adaptation always involves reshaping.
But it’s also true that an awful lot of liberties taken by screenwriters in the course of adaptation do NOT reflect essential differences between art forms, and often I think the screenwriter would have done better to follow the source material more closely.
I tend to feel the same way about stories based on real-life events: Not absolutely always, but a great deal of the time, I think that fictionalized elements in a basically true story wind up diminishing the drama of the work compared to following the historical events more scrupulously.
I agree with @victor. He put it better than I did.
@Steven: I think you’ve got to analyze selected novels and accounts of true stories with their filmed versions to test this idea. Personally, I think the film THE NATURAL is a much more satisfying story than the Malamud novel.
One big problem a writer faces in adapting a person’s life story is that life tends to be a wavy line (ups and down and up and down) whereas in a film the biggest thing has to be at the end. If you are faithful to the actual events the movie will be boring.
It’s interesting that the two “outliers” among the Top 25 films of the past decade are a James Cameron film and a Pixar film. (It’s especially interesting in Cameron’s case, since most of his films prior to Titanic were sequels or remakes!) Both of these entities basically get to set their own terms, thanks to their past successes—and thanks to the fact that they have invested as much in technical innovation as they have in their storytelling.
BTW, Matter-Eater Lad never had his own comic, did he? I thought he was just one of the many interchangeable members of the Legion of Super-Heroes.
Ooh! Ooh! I got it! Michael Cera as Matter-Eater Lad, Jonah Hill as Bouncing Boy, Christina Ricci as Shrinking Violet, and uh… Jada Pinkett Smith as Karate Kid.
On the subject of adaptations: I became a lot more sympathetic to the challenges involved about 10 years or so ago when I set about the intellectual exercise of trying to convert my NANOWRIMO novel into a screenplay and couldn’t make what I had thought was a very good plot work at all in movie form.
Anyone who has tried to turn “The Illiad” into a 32-page comic book, or tried to adapt “The Charge of the Light Brigade” into seven seasons of a 30-minute sitcom will face similar challenges.
Director Barry Levinson gave an interview a few years ago and told a story about Lord of the Rings director Peter King. Fresh off the marvellous success of the LOTR trilogy, the studio pretty much gave King carte blanche to produce/direct ANY movie he wanted to. They figured that just having Peter King in the credits was enough to sell the product. So with this power so rarely, if ever, given to a Hollywood director, what does King do? He goes and makes the flop remake “King Kong.”
That in itself told me all I needed to know about the lack of originality in Hollywood.
In fairness, Jackson is a passionate fan of the original King Kong and I believe he had been developing a remake for some time *before* he made The Lord of the Rings. At the time, the studio simply pulled the plug on the remake because Jackson was an unknown director and the budget was too big, etc., etc., but when The Lord of the Rings turned out to be a huge huge hit, the studio in question was eager to get back in business with Jackson again, and Jackson was eager to resume that project.
And was Jackson’s King Kong really a “flop”? It was the #5 film of the year, behind Star Wars, Harry Potter, Narnia and War of the Worlds, and it grossed more than double its budget at the global box office. Critics and fanboys may have been disappointed in the quality of the film, but, in strictly financial terms, I don’t think it lost any money.
“Few people grow up studying real literature. And of those, is it not almost always some form of post-modern deconstructionism? “
So what we need is a bunch of reconstructionist stories, like The Incredibles or Astro City.
@Scotty: I don’t think King Kong was a flop. My one qualm was that it was way too long. But other than that I actually found myself enjoying it. Also, Peter T has a valid point. Purely from a money-maker’s perspective, it definitely wasn’t a flop if it was the fifth film of the year.
A wise man once said ‘there are only seven stories in the world’, so it should not surprise us to know that Hollywood, or any ‘story-maker’ for that matter, re-cycling stories.
Who is this wise man? I’m tired of this premise of “nothing new under the sun” or “only seven stories”. Consider the following 14 tales, all different:
1.The Lord of the Rings-Destroy something (among other things)
2.One Piece-Find something (among other things)
3.Fullmetal Alchemist-Regain something lost (among other things)
4.Avatar: The Last Airbender-Defeat someone
5.The Napoleon of Notting Hill-Defend something loved
7.A Christmas Carol-Struggle with self
8.The Man Who Was Thursday-Spy Chase
9.Code Geass-Overthrow tyrannical government or reform it?
10.The Legend of Zelda-Rescue someone
11.Starship Troopers-Military Sci-fi
12.All You Zombies-Brain-hurting plot
13.Shaun of the Dead-Survival
14.Up-Adventure/Contemplation
Hollywood’s got no excuse.
“Military Sci-Fi” is a setting, “Survival (Horror)” is a genre. “Contemplation” is a mental state, “Destroy something” is an action. None of these are “stories”. Plots (as a bunch of things that happen in sequence in a narrative art form) can’t even be equated to stories, which carry with them certain themes (and even morals).
That said, I don’t agree with the “there are only seven stories” notion. I think this comes from Joseph Campbell (who as far as I can recall, didn’t seem to be saying with his theory of the monomyth, i.e. hero with a thousand faces, that there were only seven stories, but maybe he says it elsewhere), but it has been picked up more recently by Chris Vogler and then innumerable other authors who have since turned it into the seven-stories theory, hoping to break into the Amazon best-seller’s list).
My personal opinion is that there are at least as many stories as their are people who have ever lived. We are not wanting for stories; we are wanting for skilled story-tellers.
Ack. Spelling is way off today, but you get the idea!
I was just trying to provide a highly laconic summary of a general plot idea to illustrate my point.
I think stories and the bits and pieces that make them up are what’s being confused. I agree with victor, there are as many stories as people (or characters, if you’re a writer). But at the same time I almost agree with Ian, with the “only seven stories” concept. It’s more common threads, less the same story. That’s one of the challenges of story-telling, using those threads in a unique way. Who says a spy story can’t have a chosen one? (Just throwing something out there, although that idea would be either awesome, or the worst idea ever.)
@Beowulf, I think you are onto something. We need movies for FMA and Zelda. End of story.
I disagree that a Legend of Zelda movie would be anything but a completely horrible idea (90 minutes of the main character saying nothing but “Ooomph! Ack! Hut-hut-HEY!” while being knocked around by Octoroks—though that last part sounds kinda cool). But if you’re really curious what it would look like, check out the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HBCzkz3gHb8.
If anyone has actually read any of the “seven stories” theses and could provide a brief run-down of what they are, I’d be grateful (I guess I could look it up on wikipedia, but that’d be work).
This website seems rather relevant to the current discussion of “bits of stories arranged in unique ways”, so I thought I would share it:
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/HomePage
“I think you are onto something. We need movies for FMA and Zelda. End of story. “
As long as they cast John Rhys-Davies as Hoenheim/Father, and include the Greed vs. Wrath fight (that part was awesome!). Perhaps Zelda should be done as a silent film ;)
@victor: Ah, yes, the evil IGN Zelda Trailer April Fool’s trick. And I was all excited, too. D:
@Beowulf: You know who else would be awesome as Hoenheim/Father? Liam Neisson. He has the voice for it. And Zelda as a silent film could actually work. It would need an epic soundtrack, though…
BTW Screech, have you seen the ending of the newest anime yet? Any idea why they substantially changed the dialogue between Homunculus and Truth between the manga and the anime?
@Beowulf: FMA: Brotherhood? I’ve only seen a few episodes. They tend to change plot details between the manga and the anime. I heard that the original FMA manga was a complete travesty that was NOTHING like the manga. Apparently, the Japanese anime industry has the same problem Hollywood does.
I just thought of a potential problem with turning a Japanese comic into an American movie: the difference in cultures. I mean, with Fullmetal Alchemist it could work because it doesn’t take place in Japan. But I’ve heard rumors that Death Note is going to be made into an American movie and I’m starting to wonder how that will work. How exactly are they going to explain the fact that an American kid has a name like Light Yagami? Unless he’s like 1/2 Japanese or something…
Brotherhood follows the manga almost to the letter. The only real difference was the change in the aforementioned dialogue (at least compared to OneManga’s translation. However the Japanese sounded more like OneManga than what Funimation translated it as).
Arakawa actually asked for the first anime to be different, so that it would not give away the plot details and ending of the manga.
I always asked myself when I would see the entertainment industry run dry of ideas. But I didn’t know it would come this quickly. I’m only 16, but one tragic experience at school and years of boredom sent me into a curse, a curse where I live in a fantasy world and I take real-life events and make stories out of them, to make myself feel safer. Maybe I can use these ideas to save the industy. I currently have about 10 story projects I’m doing. So maybe I can come to the rescue of Hollywood.
A bit late on the thread, but after seeing the trailer for the upcoming 3 Musketeers film I was curious about articles on the lack of originality of Hollywood these days. Reading a lot of the comments and thinking for a bit, I think it goes a bit deeper than not having original ideas. A lot of the remakes and sequels and reimaginings actually had a good foundation for being made. The actual problem was the execution. A lot of remakes are being done to cash in on a known property, but not because someone had really looked at it in a new way, but rather using formulas that worked on the latest blockbuster and trying to tack it on hoping audiences will turn out to see more of the same. The current crop of screenwriters seem devoid of writing a coherent internally consistent piece of work.
Don’t understand the reason for all the hatred on movies based on comic books. Some very good writing and a lot of originality are happening in comics. From Hell, (a very good story with an unfortunate title), Road to Perdition [Tom Hanks] and 300 were all based on comics. The source of a good story doesn’t matter, it’s how the adaptation is managed. Two movies with strong characterization, Shawshank Redemption, and Stand By Me, both came from Stephen King stories. I don’t think you’d refer to them as scrapping the bottom of the franchise barrel for King material; nor do I believe anyone would say there have been too many films based on the works of horror writers.
As for adaptations, of course novels and movies are different media, but I believe if you so have to alter a work so as to make it unrecognizable you shouldn’t have adapted it, or you should call it something else. That brings me back to this upcoming Three Musketeers film. Airships, character realignments, and other nonsense. Of course the main people who are fooled by this are those who don’t read. My question is what happened to integrity? West Side Story is a very good reimagining of Romeo and Juliet, but the producers didn’t try to sell it as Shakespeare, they played fair.
I want a remake of Eragon! I even have a letter from the author; he told me he regretted giving the film rights to 20th century fox, as they butchered his story!
For one thing, Sapheria the dragon, does NOT have feathered wings, nor does she grow in a minute; she grew up over the course of a year.
Also, why is Galbarorix in the first film? where are the dwarves? where are the elves? where is that city on the water? Why was Durza flying on a bat-demon? that never happened in the book.
Damn it 20th century fox, you RUINED what could have been a great film series.
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