There was a somewhat disturbing article
in the NY Times yesterday reporting that, to date,
7 of the year 10 top grossing films were sequels. The third TRANSFOMRERS movie dominated the summer and the box office too, landing at number 2 for the year with 352 million dollars. With the release of more sequels hitting holiday screens (i.e. SHERLOCK and MI4) its possible that 2011 may go down in history as a year in which all of the top 10 grossing films were sequels. Unbelievable.
Sequels have been around for decades in Hollywood but the pace has picked up to a distressing degree in recent years. And then studios wring their hands and wonder why people are not going to the movies? The answer is simple: give the audience something new to see. In 2010, original films like INCEPTION and TANGLED were in the top 10. Let's hope that the new year brings more truly new films to the theatres and get the sequels going on a downward trend.
