10 Things We Learned About Cinema In 2017

This shouldn't really come as a surprise to anyone who goes to the movies on a regular basis, but an alarming number of 2017's high-profile sequels stuck rigidly to formula, with the end result being a production line of stale and uninteresting blockbusters at the expense of trying anything fresh or exciting in an attempt to reinvigorate a stale brand.

The latest entries in the Fast and Furious, Pirates of the Caribbean, Transformers, Kingsman and Alien franchises all underwhelmed to varying degrees, while Guardians of the Galaxy 2 hit too many familiar beats and lost some of the series' edge as a result.

Movies like Logan, Thor: Ragnarok, John Wick: Chapter 2, War for the Planet of the Apes and Blade Runner 2049 showed that not taking the standard approach to making sequels to popular movies can result in brilliant filmmaking, but for the most part the rest of the year's franchise fare seemed to be coasting on autopilot.

With sequels to hit movies, new chapters in established franchises and wannabe blockbusters being announced on an almost-daily basis, Hollywood has to find new ways to tell stories with these familiar characters in order to stop audiences losing interest entirely.

Which conveniently makes a nice segue onto the next point...