20 Alternative 2017 Movie Awards
2. Biggest Threat To Cinema - Nostalgia
Let's be clear, nostalgia is all well and good in small doses. Yet somehow, Hollywood has found a way to weaponize it and sell it to the masses, with original ideas frequently thrown out of the window at the expense of a brand that one portion of the audience will remember from some point in their life.
Disney's live-action updates of their animated classics essentially exist for this very purpose, after all. Remember Power Rangers? Here's a gritty reboot. Jumanji was great, right? This time we've added The Rock. Baywatch was so cheesy, wouldn't it make a great comedy? Again, we've added The Rock. Did you miss Star Wars? Well here's plenty of callbacks to the original trilogy and a new movie every year. Let's cover up our Prometheus sequel by slapping 'Alien' back into the title, people still remember Alien right?
If the movie business continues to rehash and recycle the same properties over and over just because they come with a little recognition, then cinema will end up stuck in a cycle where fresh, exciting ideas fail to make it through because the studios see a pre-established brand as less of a financial gamble.
With Peter Rabbit, Death Wish, Tomb Raider, Rampage, Solo: A Star Wars Story, The Predator, A Star Is Born, Halloween and more set for release in 2018, Hollywood is doubling down on the fact that people remember stuff from the past at the expense of the present or future.