The commodification of nostalgia in film

Reboots, sequels, prequels, and remakes of remakes: why don’t they make movies like they used to?

In 1981, only 16% of the highest-grossing movies were sequels and remakes. Fast forward to the 21st century, that number rose to 80% in 2019. In 1993, all of the top highest-grossing films were standalone originals; in 2021, none were. Just last year, for the first time in recorded history, the 10 highest-grossing movies were all sequels—begging the question why is mainstream movie culture so stagnant as of late?

Inside Out 2, Despicable Me 4, Dune: Part II, Alien: Romulus, Joker: Folie à Deux, Terrifier 3, and even Robert Egger’s acclaimed Nosferatu (a remake of an iconic 1920s silent film) are a few hit titles from the past year, all of which are reboots. Recently, the trailer for Freakier Friday was released—a sequel to the popular 2003 Disney comedy Freaky Friday starring Jamie Lee Curtis and Lindsay Lohan, recast in their original roles. Jurassic World Rebirth, 28 Years Later, Mission Impossible: The Final Reckoning, Avatar 3, Superman, Final Destination: Bloodlines, Zootopia 2, Lilo & Stitch, and The Conjuring: Last Rites are a handful of upcoming anticipated reboots in 2025. 

Fewer original films are getting greenlit by the studios, marking that there’s clearly a market for nostalgia, maybe now more than ever. Who can resist the appeal of your favourite comfort characters returning to your screens, especially during times of global unrest?

The volatile state of the global economy also appears to be behind Hollywood redundantly churning out cash-grab continuations of already successful franchises. In 2023, 11,500 screenwriters in the United States went on strike for 148 days; the second-longest work stoppage in Hollywood history. It was in response to the changing environment of the industry due to streaming services and the rise of artificial intelligence, resulting in an over $5 billion loss for the film industry and 17% decrease in employment. 

Television is suffering from this, too. When HBO’s Game of Thrones ended in 2019, critics lamented that it was the last remnant of monoculture. Prior to the rise of streaming services and the algorithmic fragmentation of niche content, as well as the phenomenon of binge-watching, pop culture was dominated by a single show that everybody tuned into episodically and raved about. It wasn’t just you that watched it. Your parents watched it; your siblings and co-workers watched it; your friends watched it; your friend’s parents watched it; local bars played reruns of episodes; strangers on the street and the grocery store talked about it.

There was a cultural togetherness in a sense that critics argued couldn’t be replicated afterwards, that it would be difficult for later shows to achieve that same level of collective impact. The conclusion of Game of Thrones was considered “the end of an era” in terms of monoculturalism and there’s some truth to it. Although shows like Netflix’s Wednesday and Stranger Things certainly impact pop culture—with the trending of scene of Jenna Ortega dancing to The Cramps, or the resurgence of Kate Bush’s 1985 “Running Up That Hill (A Deal with God)”—they don’t have the same influence shows like Game of Thrones had as a whole. What they do have are trendy clips that you see online, as opposed to a monolithic impact. 

Actor Matt Damon talked about this in a 2021 interview on the talk show Hot Ones, correlating the death of monoculture with the rise of streaming services and decline in purchasing physical media. “The DVD was a huge part of our business of our revenue stream and technology has just made that obsolete. The movies that we used to make, you could afford to not make all of your money when it played in theatre. Because you knew you had the DVD coming behind the release and six months later, you’d get a whole other chunk. It would be like reopening the movie almost. When that went away, that changed the type of movies we could make,” explained Damon. 

While there’s a marked market for nostalgia today, because people long for the classics of their youth, romanticizing the bygone days of cinematic monoculture, there’s no shortage of originality if you know where to look for it. Besides, monoculture isn’t entirely dead just yet—think Barbenheimer (Barbie/Oppenheimer).

On the flipside, the fragmentation of culture, thanks to the rise of streaming services and social media algorithms, has given way to an unprecedented rise of indie filmmaking and original content. It’s particularly present in foreign content—the popularity of Scandinavian noir and Korean dramas, for instance—that the rise of these streaming services gives an international platform to. More people now than ever have the opportunity to pursue filmmaking, and there’s an abundance of hidden gems by independent directors as an alternative to Hollywood blockbusters. 

It doesn’t look like reboots are going away anytime soon. Mainstream cinema will continue to rely on time-tested formulaic storylines and typecast actors. Beloved stars are even being resurrected from the dead with AI, notably Carrie Fisher who was digitally brought back to life in Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker (2019) and now iconic sex symbol James Dean, set to be brought back with deepfake technology in an upcoming sci-fi movie. Despite Hollywood’s reboots of classics that were already successful, independent moviemaking will simultaneously rival it and give us new classics, offering more cutting-edge content and surging in popularity (especially if strikes continue).