What do we love more than a good, original story? Good characters of course. Think about the last few new movies you saw. How many of them were original titles, with unique stories and characters? And how many were remakes, reboots, sequels, prequels or based on another medium such as a comic book, book or play?
For the majority of people reading this, most of the films you are thinking of did not fall into the first category. Maybe you thought of the Jurassic park sequel series, Jurassic World. Or maybe one of the now seemingly endless stream of Star Wars movies. Or the three marvel comic book movies Disney put out a year. Did I mention the new predator movie? What about the Ghost Busters remake? And don’t forget the Disney live action adaptations of classic animated titles. Ok, I’ll stop but you get the point.
It almost feels like the promotions for all these movies could be “it’s like that other thing you like but newer”. It is the same thing Apple do with the iPhone, sort of. But ultimately, the aim of the game is to make money and they wouldn’t keep making these remakes, prequels and sequels if there wasn’t any money in it.
First of all it hits two main demographics the nostalgia seeking adults who feel that the cinema ticket price is worth it if there’s any hope of coming close to the spectacle of the original movies. (Spoiler: they never do.) And then there’s the younger generation, the children of the above described nostalgia seekers. This second group is important for a few reasons. Firstly even if they haven’t seen the original movies they’re aware of the brand which alone brings a level of expectation and hope that these movies will be good. And secondly because the studios are banking on turning them into the older nostalgia seekers of the future creating an endless cycle whereby we’ll inevitably reach Star Wars episode 102.
Now here’s the marketing bit – brand and reputation really mean something! You could promote a dinosaur movie or a sci-fi sword wielding spaceship filled bananza and they may even be great movies but they wouldn’t draw the same audience as a Jurassic Park/World or Star Wars would because they just don’t have the name (yet). Jurassic Park built a reputation for good dinosaur movies (I’ve no idea why, after the first one it was all downhill) and Star Wars did their thing better than anyone else leading to a plethora of movies all these years later which are still performing well at the box office. Eventually people will catch onto the lack of plot, character development or pretty much anything worth having in the Jurassic world movies but for now they’ll keep throwing a bucket load of CGI dinosaurs at you whilst you buy in based on the original movie made 25 years ago. It’s easier to market an existing brand than sell an original movie.
Ps. The worst part is you’re paying to watch a 2 hour toy advertisement.
Pss. The worse worst part is that you buy the toys (and not always for your kids), clothing and collectibles etc.
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