We don't need an escape

Coming to movie theaters near you: “Candy Land: The Movie.”

I wish I had just made that up, but it’s true. Universal Studios is financing a feature-length film based on the popular children’s board game.

This has to stop. Hollywood is clearly creatively retarded and has reached a point where any new development announcement that does not say “remake,” “reboot” or “based on” is shocking.

And though people have been taking the film and TV studios to task for years for failing to create many original ideas, it really seems out of control in 2009.

One quick look at the films that aired trailers during the Super Bowl – a usual sign that audiences are supposed to think of them as “major” events – and reveals a startling lack of original material. Of those films, seven are either sequels, remakes or adaptations: “G.I. Joe” (based on toys), “Transformers 2” (ditto), “Race to Witch Mountain” (remake), “Star Trek” (reboot/sequel), “Fast & Furious” (sequel), “Land of the Lost” (TV series remake) and “Angels & Demons” (adaptation). The other major movies of 2009, “Watchmen,” “Terminator Salvation,” “Wolverine” and the sixth “Harry Potter” are not original ideas, either.

On the television side of things, adaptations and reboots are happening occasionally – the CW is planning a “Melrose Place” reboot, CBS has an “NCIS” spin-off – but the major issue there is plain-old lame ideas.

The new crop of shows being developed for the 2009-10 season are chock-full of cops, lawyers and doctors. Two-thirds of the shows in development feature the only three professions that seem to exist in Hollywood.

The industry could use the slugging economy and ever-changing technology as an excuse – advertising revenues have disappeared, ratings have slipped in TV and major media conglomerates like Disney and Time Warner are reporting monstrous financial losses – but this has been going on for much longer than that.

Instead, I partly blame on audiences. Whenever the entertainment industry decided to feed us garbage, people made the wrong choice in simply accepting it.

Hollywood consistently looks down on its audience and aspires to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

But by making “Transformers” one of the highest-grossing films of 2007 and accepting a slew of “CSI” spin-offs, we let them.

Now, in a time of economic, political and social unrest, we can only expect more products made on the cheap with built-in name recognition and hopes of providing an “escape.”

But now is the time for us to stop this evil cycle. If the movie-going public is strapped for cash and more picky with its film choices, maybe we won’t have drivel shoved down our throats.

 If TV audiences turn on their brains and clamor for heady shows like they did post-9/11, horrendous reality- and product-fueled programs like “Knight Rider” won’t make it to the air.

Don’t let Hollywood insult your intelligence anymore.