New ideas: what's Hollywood got against them?

We’ve known for a while that new ideas are noticeable only by their absence on the production slates of Hollywood studios and production companies. The news of a Memento remake simply reinforces this.

However, it’s worth noting that 2015 is something of an annus horriblis. The top 20 films of the year worldwide have generated a combined box office total of $13.3bn, of which just less than $1.4bn or 10% came from original ideas (that is to say movies that are not prequels, sequels, shared universe, adaptations of fiction in other media or of historical fact).

And that 10% was generated by just two films: $850.3m from the brilliant Inside Out and $517.5m from the dire San Andreas. One could point out that San Andreas is just a disaster movie, the script there simply to service the need for some plot to hang the special effects and action sequences upon, which leaves one truly original film in the top 20.

Phew! But brace yourself for some more contextual stats: those top 20 cost $2.5bn to make, before advertising and promotional costs, and exhibitors, distributors and big stars taking their share of the back-end (presumably not too many of the latter these days? Tom Cruise, Robert Downey Jnr and that’s about it). So that $13bn of revenue begins to look like low margin business. Or in other words, how do you make a small fortune in the movies? Start with a large fortune!

Take Sony and 007: even if Spectre becomes the second billion dollar Bond, Sony will only see $100m of profit! If you can only make a 10% profit margin on a known property megahit’s total box office, why would you ever put millions of dollars into new ideas? I accept that's an extreme example, with Sony being the distributor, not the owner of the content.

Especially when known properties can’t guarantee hits! Pan, anyone? Basic production cost $150m; worldwide takings so far just $119.8m. And let’s not forget that even super hero movies can flop: Fantastic Four cost $120m but brought in just $168m. That’s less than the last super hero flop, Green Lantern, four years ago.

And FF is not the flop of the year: that title goes to the Wachowski brothers’ Jupiter Ascending, which cost $176m and pulled in $183.8m. Ok, that’s technically a new idea, but then again anyone who thinks The Matrix is an original movie doesn’t know their sci-fi, so I'd be surprised if there was a genuinely original idea in Jupiter Ascending.

Now look at what 2016 has to offer in terms of megahits:

• Bats v Supes
• Captain America 3
• X-Men: Apocalypse
• Now You See Me 2
• Independence Day 2
• Tarzan
• Ghostbusters
• Star Trek 3
• Jason Bourne 4
• Finding Dory (sequel to Finding Nemo)
• Suicide Squad
• Dr Strange
• Star Wars: Rogue One
• Passengers
• Assassin’s Creed

Did you spot the new idea in that list? That’s right: Passengers, a sci-fi film due for release in December 2016, starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt.

No doubt Tarantino’s Hateful Eight will pull in some $400m worldwide but, with no Christopher Nolan opus until 2017, that’s about your lot for movies based on new ideas.

So while the international market is still growing (OK, barely as a whole), Hollywood remains averse to spending money on fresh, new ideas. Meanwhile, Western TV in the past decade has brought us the likes of Lost, Life On Mars, House, The Wire, Breaking Bad, The Fall, Line of Duty, Parks And Recreation, 30 Rock, Mad Men, etc. Is there a connection between the quality and quantity of original writing in TV and the lack of the same in movies? Debate that among yourselves.

As a final, depressing thought, I leave you with this news: Pixar has produced and released 15 films so far, of which 11 were original ideas (look at the quality: Toy Story, Monsters Inc, Finding Nemo, The Incredibles, Wall*E, Up and Inside Out); however, among its next six films are four sequels. No doubt at least three of those sequels will be very good, but they’re still sequels...