2016: The Cinema of Regression

Have we not currently reached the point of the Cinema of Regression?

A Cinema of Nostalgia would be a nicer way to put it.

Of The Hollywood Reporter’s Most Anticipated Movies of 2016 (which can be found at the link below), 36 out of 40 of the year’s most anticipated films are not original material.

Hollywood’s unwillingness to risk material without an already built-in audience is a major factor behind this glut of book adaptations, sequels, prequels, and remakes. How can over 90% of this year’s upcoming event films be unoriginal material?

Of course, adapting source material to film is not a new idea. And it’s not to say that every single adaptation is bad. Many of them are enjoyable and some of them could even be truly great. But what is in question here is the proliferation of this type of film and what it says about Hollywood’s business tactics and values in this time of increasingly global and accessible cinema.

Being right at the high point of Awards Season in the Cinephile Year, next weekend’s Oscars are also on my mind in relation to this. This trend poses questions about the Oscars categories which are separated into Best Original Screenplay and Best Adapted Screenplay. There can’t possibly be as many contenders for Best Original Screenplay because there just aren’t as many original screenplays that Hollywood is willing to finance anymore.

Which is why I think we’ve finally reached the point of the Cinema of Regression. We have regressed back to properties that are mythically “risk-free” simply because we have made them in the past.

The Cinema of Nostalgia would suggest that rather than regressing, we’re simply enjoying looking back and having these properties moved into the modern sphere.

Either way, we aren’t getting anything new. I suppose it’s just the cinephile’s lament, but sometimes, I miss films that were written to be films.

Link: The Hollywood Reporter’s 40 Most Anticipated Movies of 2016