Why are remakes/sequels so common now? Are they even that common?

Why does it seem like every other movie that comes out today is a remake of, or a sequel to, some other movie people already like?

I just saw Beauty and the Beast, and it was a good version of The Beauty and the Beast but with people instead of cartoons. Emma Watson is great. Ewan Mcgregor is a lamp. They added a gay joke or two to show time has passed. It's a perfectly decent film. But why remake it now?

Movies have been around for a long time, and people have been trying to make money off them for just as long. For that reason I don't buy the "Movie studios realized they could make more money by selling the same thing three times (Just look at those Hobbit Movies!) argument" Movie executives didn't just wake up in 2005 or something and have a revelation about how to profit off things.

The reasons I can come up with are as follows:

• The Wishful Thinking Theory: There are just more movies now than ever before, so the proportion of new stuff to remakes/sequels has not changed, there are just more of both. We perceive that remakes and sequels are the way of things because they attract the most attention. Basically it's "The greatest time to be watching movies." and we shouldn't be so bothered.
• The Globalization Theory: China, India and everywhere else are much more open to western films than in the past, by remaking films or making sequels, you can re-introduce a film franchise to literally billions of people who aren't American or European.
• The Hollywood has become Weird Theory: Perhaps Hollywood studios have transformed in such a way that it doesn't make sense to be creating a wide array of different movies. This also encompasses the "Media is risk-phobic" argument often talked about on the Bombcast in regards to videogames. Particularly in the wake of the '08 financial Crisis, I wonder if many studios found it necessary to merge, pool their resources and "dig in" by committing to known franchises that will produce a consistent return.
• Something else?

Why do you think this is happening? I don't really think it's something to worry about, there are still some really great original movies coming out. But I do find it weird that they would wait only 26 years to remake BnTB but still not have made a proper Snow White remake even though that film came out 80 years ago and is probably even more widely popular.

Personally, I'm going with "80s and 90s nostalgia".

Think about it: people who grew up in the 80s and 90s have grown up and get warm, fuzzy feelings when they think about their childhoods, which was the first to be dominated by big franchises. Now they've become adults with an income. That's a great guaranteed market, and if you're lucky, they've already started their own families with kids that can also be catered to.

You could already see this in the early 00s, when stuff like the Scooby Doo and Flintstones movies came out, but later with Transformers, GI Joe, Ninja Turtles, the Marvel movies, Dragon Ball, and the Power Rangers... Man, if you think about it long enough, it's pretty grim that you're childhood is that exploitable.

Coincidentally, that's the perfect length of time to wait if you want to sell to the audience who grew up with it and now has the most purchasing power.

Every story has been told already and there are very few truly original ideas coming out of any form of literature. Almost everything is putting your unique twist on an existing story. Make sense since we've been follow the same basic skeleton since Ancient Greece. Sometimes you just don't have an idea for a unique twist, may as well remake something good.

I love remakes, because even bad remakes like Poltergeist remind me to watch the fantastic originals again.

Just like any band trying to make it, you end up playing covers. Sequels or remakes of existing, loved properties are guaranteed money makers. They don't even have to be good. Look at the Transformers movies. Utter schlock, but they make loads of cash.

To capture the imaginations of each new generation and get them into something they've never heard of, often, like Ghostbusters or whatever. Money makes that world go around, obviously; it's usually people who love the original stuff that complain, nearly always for insightful reasons. Most people are pretty easy to please and eat up that shit.

Sometimes it's to genuinely introduce people who have never heard of certain things to stories and characters from foreign film/TV series in a way that's more easily accessible, like Let Me In, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo remake, The Departed, etc.

A lot of films deemed classics are remakes in one way or another: A Fistful of Dollars (Yojimbo), The Maltese Falcon, The Thing, Casino Royale, etc.

Some are annoying; some are obvious cash-ins; some are great in their own right, or allow less culturally diverse or younger folk to find those classic stories; some are attempts to genuinely rejuvenate or re-imagine an arguably weaker film (Evil Dead II).

I'd say it's definitely risk aversion. It's funny, I noticed the other day when I went to the movies that watching trailers has become less "oh, that movie looks good" and more a guessing game to figure out how it got made. Is it part of a franchise/series? Is it from a studio/director who's known for bringing in audiences? Does it have some of the most popular actors/actresses out there? I can't think of a single trailer I've seen in theaters in recent years that didn't fit one of these or another similar reason why it's less risky.

But that wasn't because of the movie studios. The internet is a big reason all this has changed so much, as is the rise of "internet culture". Trailers are no longer there to try to show if the movie is good. They have to sell you on reasons to watch it other than "is it good" because if you want to be objective about it from so many stand points the majority of most things produced nowadays are good to some degree. They do something well. You have to. Just like games the market is so flooded with everything. It's not just a matter of "should I watch a super hero movie today" it's "does this super hero movie including X thing that I happen to have an affinity for." Whether that X is an actor, a director, a particular hero or canon, whatever.

It's not that I don't sympathize either by the way. I do also miss the days where you would go into a theater and you'd be using the trailers as a means to try to gauge what you may or may not be interested in. A sample taste for them to try and win you over if you will. Trailers used to convey the tone and sense of a film way more than they do now. Now it's about being edgy, trendy, doing what you can to really get people talking and getting the youtube views up. Several movies release with trailer songs that don't feature in the film and have literally nothing to do with the tone or overall style of the movie. But I think that is also why trailers can't really be the barometer for this type of stuff either. It's all just reflective of how us humans as a collective have been consuming and engaging in our media.

And I can't speak for everyone here but I also side on the fence with this issue because I often think remakes and sequels are awesome. Even if I know it's manipulative, more and more people who make a sequel take advantage of the fact that they don't have to spend time introducing me to a whole new set of characters. I like that. But there is and has always been this very divisive divide as it relates to something being a self contained story, versus something that tries to setup something bigger. And there are examples where both have worked and failed. But I still can't help but applaud those that go for something bigger than the scope of a self contained story.

People just don't know their film history and thus they see a new pattern when it is just the tail end of a LONGER pattern. Film makers from around the world have been remaking movies forever. It is PART of film history and very well worn ground. There were more than two other Wizard of Oz films before the Judy Garland classic. Ben-Hur with Charlton Heston was not the first, it was the third or fourth!!! Robin Hood movies? There have been twenty or more Robin Hood films not counting the animated features, made for TV movies and Daffy Duck shorts! If you think Barbra Streisan played the title role on "A Star is Born" first, then you own Janet Gaynor an apology.

In fact, Holly wood waiting twenty, thirst or forth years between re-makes is downright friendly when you consider that many remakes in teh 30s were just making 'talkies' out of old silent films 15 years before. Just look up a list of remakes and you will be shocked, what si more shocking is some films just chnage teh name but they are all based on teh same plot. For instance.

• The Shop Around the Corner (1940) dir. Ernst Lubitsch
• In the Good Old Summertime (1949) dir. Robert Z. Leonard
• Pillow Talk (1959) dir. Michael Gordon
• You've Got Mail (1998) dir. Nora Ephron

All the same story, just retold/re-shot in different eras. And, sorry, as good as Rock Hudson and Doris Day were in Pillow talk....Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan are national treasures who deserved to be in YET ANOTHER Rom-Com! So by all means notice that films are being remade, but maybe tone down the rhetoric that modern Hollywood is more bankrupt of ideas now than it was in 1910, 1920, 1830, 1940 or 1950. Hollywood is forever recycling ideas, and -maybe- that is okay because literature has been recycling the same stories for 6000 years too.

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Things cost so much to make, when pitching a remake they can use the perceived built in audience to leverage the money men. The risk of losing a bamillion dollars on an unknown is a high risk they don.t want to take.

It's easier/cheaper to convince audiences and movie studios to back a project when they recognize elements of it. How much more likely are you to see a Star Wars films versus a new drama or sci-fi thriller? You already know about how good or bad that Star Wars film will be, however the sci-fi movie could be real bad and not worth your time/money.

i can't think of the last wholly original film that wasn't based on a book/pre existing franchise. interstellar is the only thing that immediately comes to mind, andd the only next thing is dunkirk. basically christopher nolan is the last bastion of semi originality (though the prestige, his best movie, is an adaptation. lol.)

if we're talking about games things are a little less bleak. nioh and horizon:zero dawn among other things. (though mechanics wise they wear their inspirations on their sleeves)