In the nearly $100 billion film industry, studios and directors are constantly working to grow it even more. But this growth comes at a creative expense. 14 of the top 20 movie releases in 2026 are either remakes, sequels or adaptations. Big franchises such as Star Wars, Marvel, DC and Fast and Furious are slated to release films in this window. And this poses the question: are sequels and remakes taking away the magic and creativity the film industry once had?
Even this year we have seen these same trends in movie releases. Three of the top five movies of this week fall into that group I mentioned earlier. “A Minecraft Movie”, “The Accountant 2” and “Until Dawn” are all in this category. This success for sequels, remakes and adaptations may lead some to say that these films are successful and continue to do well at the box office, even though they are not original ideas. And while this is true, the movies’ ratings say otherwise. A Minecraft Movie currently is rated a 5.9/10 on IMDB and Until Dawn is rated at just a 6.0. So, although these movies are proving to be able to bring the audiences to watch them, viewers seem to think the quality is lacking. The movie ranked just above these two is the original film from director Ryan Coogler, “Sinners”. “Sinners” has exceeded $175 million at the box office while also receiving a fan rating of 8.1/10.
In certain instances, sequels, remakes and adaptations are crucial for completing a story or starting a new one. However, I believe in recent years, studios have found these films to be “safer” options than picking up original creative ideas. This choice has left the movie industry feeling dry and fatigued. I think this is the exact reason a movie like “Sinners” has done so well. The average box office earnings of a rated R film are less than $50 million, whereas “Sinners” has more than tripled that.
Other evidence of original creative success lies in the success of the studio, A24. While their earnings have never been on par with those of top Hollywood studios, their films are loved by many. In fact, the studio has taken home three Best Picture awards at the Oscars in the last ten years for their films, “Everything Everywhere All at Once”, “Parasite” and “Moonlight”. That is more than any other studio has won in the last 15 years besides Fox Searchlight. However, I do not believe these success stories will change the minds of the studios.
While these films have massive success among audiences and critics, they lack monetary earnings. In an era where Universal can create a farfetched “Fast and Furious” movie and it can make $100 million easily, I do not believe they will ever choose true creativity over that. It appears the film industry is trending more and more towards these sequels and remakes, however there will always be creative and original films out there. They may not be the most popular or make nearly enough money, but talented filmmakers will continue to create these films anyway.
