The golden age of recycled ideas

“There is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible.”

What a lovely day for remakes—300 million dollars lovely to be inexact. Less than a month in and that is how much Mad Max: Fury Road has made worldwide. Released one week later, Disney’s Tommorowland, starring George Clooney, is already projected to lose upwards of 120 million dollars.

While the impending flop of Tommorowland may be credited to the poor movie formula of nine-figure filmmaking, it is also a clear look at where good movies and their ideas come from. When placed side-by-side with the success of George Miller’s Mad Max: Fury Road, it is easily shown that we are entering the golden age of recycled ideas.

“We simply take a lot of old ideas and put them into a sort of mental kaleidoscope.”

With the exception of Disney’s Frozen, you would have to go all the way back to 2010 to find a top 5 highest grossing movie that is not a remake, sequel, or adaptation of any kind. Even the highest grossing movie of all time, James Cameron’s Avatar, can be argued to be an indirect remake of 1990’s Dances with Wolves.

While the casual movie-goer or torrent-downloader would not bother themselves with the financial aspect of movies, filmmaking, at the end of the day, will always be a business. And looking at the box office successes of the previous few years, it appears these businessmen would rather invest their time and money in the winning formula of a recycled movie or idea.

“We give them a turn and they make new and curious combinations.”

The success of recycled ideas should not be looked down on as easy business. There is a much more calculated approach to these sort of movies than just tracing with a higher-def camera. Filmmakers have tried to tweak and improve these movies to separate them from their source material, and it seems the best litmus test on whether or not they have created enough separation is whether it can be proven that the movie’s success is exclusive to the year it is released.

In Mad Max: Fury Road, the central character was not the titular Mad Max, as in the original set of films, but Imperator Furiosa, portrayed by Charlize Theron. The people behind the upcoming Ghostbusters reboot have the same idea in mind, opting for an all-female cast. In 21 Jump Street, Jonah Hill took the 1987 television series and flipped it on its head. Though it is often confused for an original idea, Birdman is really a meta-adaptation of a Raymond Carver short story. Although each adaptation or reboot was obviously based on another idea, lengths were still taken to ensure something new was given to audiences.

Movies based on video games are also seeking similar success. It is not the same effort given in the half-baked adaptations offered in previous years, as seen in Doom or Hitman. Nowadays, the minds behind these films rely on heavy hitters like Duncan Jones for the upcoming Warcraft and Michael Fassbender for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed taking charge of the production.

“We keep on turning and making new combinations indefinitely”

Despite all the facts backing the success of recycled ideas and the failure of original ideas, cinemas are not without their opposites and exceptions. It is very easy to find poor remakes (especially in the horror genre), as well as great original ideas (2014’s Nightcrawler, 2015’s Ex Machina).

At the end of the day, there really is no general rule that original ideas are inferior to adaptations, but with the influx of comic book movies in the years to come, it seems like original ideas will have to wait until 2020 for this whole Marvel fad to die down and for them to get a chance to take back Hollywood.

“But they are the same old pieces of colored glass that have been in use through all the ages.”

The real kicker here is that recycled ideas are inevitable. Not only is it proven that they are more prone to success, but that even the sparse success of an original idea will most likely lead to its immediate sequel or delayed remake.

Mark Twain, the man behind the quote, was right. There really is no such thing as a new idea. It is impossible.