Movies strike it big on sequels and remakes

The Magic 8 Ball is getting its own movie.

You heard me: an entire movie written, filmed and marketed around the black plastic toy that holds 20 predetermined answers to all your most pressing questions.

Not that the 8 Ball is alone in bygone brands to be getting their own movies. Films about Candyland, Battleship and Stretch Armstrong are all in the works. Ridley Scott has even been in talks to direct the Monopoly movie.

Add in the slate of uncalled-for sequels and remakes to hit theaters this year — “Sex and the City 2,” “The Karate Kid,” “Step Up 3D,” “Marmaduke” (Seriously? The least funny comic in the Sunday paper. At least give me “Beetle Bailey.”) — and I actually felt the need to dust off my old Magic 8 Ball and ask it a question.

Is Hollywood running out of ideas? 

(Shakes furiously)  

“Signs point to yes.”

The real answer to why so many stale ideas have made it to the big screen can be summed up in one word. As the saying goes, the answer to 99 out of 100 of the world’s questions is money, and this is no exception.

In 2004, the average cost to make a studio film rose above the $100 million mark for the first time. Within three years, Hollywood executives were in the midst of the writers’ strike and a huge economic downturn. The stakes of producing a big-budget film had gone up, and studios began looking toward safer bets. Not only did movies based on preexisting ideas come with built-in familiarity and, by proxy, publicity, but money that had once been paid to writers for their original ideas could now serve a dual purpose as part of the marketing budget.

Thus, “Miami Vice” starring Colin Farrell was born.

As sad as that reality sounds, how can you blame the studios?  The movie business is, after all, still a business.

At this point, you must be feeling disheartened. The economy isn’t really looking up, and Zac Efron is still starring in a remake of “Footloose” coming out in 2011. What assurance do we have that “Thundercats 9: More Thunder, More Cattier” isn’t a real possibility to come out in the summer of 2021?

To pessimists, there are two pieces of encouraging news. The first is this: As Rob Crotty of salon.com puts it, “Original art is there, it’s just buried underneath the flag-burning attention remakes get.” Simply put, there are more films being produced today than at any other time in the past. New, creative ideas are still being turned into movies, and they are often made possible by the profit brought in by big-budget remakes.

It just takes a little more effort to find them.

Secondly, many in the industry believe that the remake trend is about to wind down. In a summer when only three out of the 14 major releases can be traced back to an original idea, attendance is down 13.3 percent, and this has some producers rethinking their strategies.

“People are feeling marketed to,” said J.C. Spink, a partner in the management and production company Benderspink and one of the executive producers of “The Hangover.” “I think we’ve all gone a little overboard as an industry.”

The thought, then, is that Hollywood executives are getting the message and are once again searching for original material.

So approaches a cautiously optimistic future. Maybe there will be enough people who are fed up and no longer feel like spending $12.50 to see Bradley Cooper and Johnny Knoxville imitate 1980s TV characters for two hours on the big screen. The public might put up with a glut of “Alvin and the Chipmunks Squeakuels,” but there are still enough good movies coming out to get by.

“Inception” marks the next big original film being released. Let’s just hope its success doesn’t win Christopher Nolan the green light for “Memento 2.”