8 Reasons Hollywood Will Never Stop Making Sequels

8. For Starters, The Numbers Say It's A Good Idea

Of the ten highest grossing films of each year since 2010 (so a data set of seventy), fifty-one were sequels, five were reboots of existing franchises, six were original animations (half of which were based on pre-existing ideas), three were adaptations of popular works (two books, one video game) and only four were wholly original ideas (two of which came from Christopher Nolan, who is pretty much a brand by himself). Of those latter three categories (which fit the notion of an original movie), six of them either got or are getting sequels, meaning that only seven movies (or 10%) in the Top 10 highest grossing films of each year in the 2010s are non-franchise films.

That's a shocking percentage, and seems to say that audiences actually want sequels and remakes over fresh ideas. So why wouldn't you give them more of that?

Of course, there is the issue of choice; those seven movies are Inception, Inside Out, Gravity, The Martian, Tangled, Interstellar and The Mermaid (the highest grossing Chinese film ever), most of which consistently rank as the most popular of this seventy films. As that's unquantifiable, however, it's not surprising studios listen to the 90%.