Friday

So, why are there no new original Hollywood blockbusters? You'll notice I used a lot of qualifiers there. This is because of course there are original movies being made, and original blockbusters (like Nightwatch, for example), but not that many from Hollywood. The first counter-argument might be 'Hollywood never made original blockbusters', and perhaps this is true. Or, conversely, 'a blockbuster, by definition, isn't original'. Since the beginning of the cinema industry films have been made from other material - books, plays, historical events etc. When we think of the original movies of the past we are perhaps forgetting that a hundred unoriginal movies came out at the same time that have since been forgotten. It's hard to analyse a period when you're in the middle of it. And anyway, isn't the point of a blockbuster to reinforce conventions and give the audience what they want? Nonetheless, I think it has to be beyond doubt that over the last 5-10 years the amount of remakes, sequels, and adaptations from comic books and television has been growing. Producers, no doubt, will say that we, the audience, are to blame. After all, they only try to give us what we want. Sequels are big hits at the box office, so of course they're going to make more of them. But isn't the relationships between what we like and what we get much more complicated than that? I'll continue this thought tomorrow...