Nostalgia Has Hollywood in Retrograde

The film industry is looking to the future but living in the past

Welcome to your Sunday Fluff at The Drip Tray: a weekly treat of fun and fandom to indulge your sweet tooth, like an artsy latte.

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I recently watched the classic King Kong (1933) in its entirety for the first time and almost wept at the cherished memories it evoked. I grew up with Peter Jackson’s 2005 remake – I saw it at the cinema with my grandfather, who grew up with the original – and the Simpsons parody. Seeing how faithful they were to Merian C. Cooper and Ernest B. Schoedsack’s iconic adventure-romance monster movie, down to the dialogue and giant gorilla’s movements, made me so happy.

The stop motion effects were way ahead of its time, even if they’re janky and stilted by today’s standards. The screenwriting is fantastic and Fay Wray, Bruce Cabot, and Robert Armstrong give compelling performances. And the score! It might be the nostalgia talking, but it’s easy to see why this film was so influential, paving the way for films like Godzilla (1954), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), and even Jurassic Park (1993). Like Steven Spielberg’s dinosaur adventure, King Kong (2005) blew my mind as a young boy and it seems that the childlike wonder never left.

Now, the prehistoric ape is labelled a “titan” of a lost animal kingdom hiding in Hollow Earth and the films have been reduced to CGI-action fan service. The latest instalment in the franchise, comprised of 10 films and three direct-to-video animations, is Godzilla x Kong: The New Empire (2024), which sounds like a mixtape collab. The two legendary monsters were first introduced to each other in King Kong vs. Godzilla (1962) before revisiting the idea in Godzilla vs. Kong (2021). But the OG feature still holds up in an abundance of carbon copy remakes and sequels.

So, why do we keep going back to old ideas and wringing them dry instead of just coming up with new ones?

King Kong (1933)

Even though we’re a quarter into the 21^st century, we’ve been living in the past for quite a while now. The last five years alone have seen reimaginings of Nosferatu (1922), Dracula (1931), The Invisible Man (1933), and most recently The Wolf Man (1941), with Guillermo del Toro’s highly-anticipated Frankenstein currently in production. In fact, 18 of the 20 highest-grossing films of 2024 were sequels or remakes. The only one on this list that I’d be quick to watch again is Alien: Romulus – and even that has its problems. If these results don’t indicate that we’re scraping the bottom of the barrel, I don’t know what will.

Of course, the most obvious example of this is the superhero genre, which is dominated by Disney and their Marvel Cinematic Universe. The beloved juggernaut has churned out an average of four films a year since 2016, with plans for Phase Six releases up to 2027 already announced. If you feel like you’re struggling to keep up, don’t be too hard on yourself. There are also currently 28 different Marvel shows available to stream, excluding animated and documentary series, with another five scheduled for release later this year. However, the most recent standalone film Kraven the Hunter (2024) only made half its budget back.

At least visionary filmmakers like Leigh Whannell and Robert Eggers are putting a fresh spin on fan favourites. But what happened to the days of taking risks for emerging trends and waging bets on exciting newcomers? Where is the innovation and aplomb that was so prominent in independent cinema of the ’90s and harnessed by major studios in the 2000s? Thankfully, the tide is changing with the integration of streaming and the success of indie arthouse films like Coralie Fargeat’s body horror The Substance (2024), which has been nominated for Best Picture – a genre typically snubbed by the Academy.

Demi Moore accepting the 2024 Golden Globe Award for Best Performance by a Female Actor in The Substance.

The evidence is irrefutable: Hollywood is relying on legacy IPs to keep the industry alive, but moviegoers are getting tired of it and the results are telling. Universal Pictures grossed a total revenue of $1.88 billion in 2024, down 3% from 2023, while Netflix grossed a whopping $39 billion, up 16% from the year before. This may also suggest that people are wary of leaving their homes for a cinematic experience, especially since the pandemic, with the accessibility of streaming. In an era of constant reboots and crossovers, many are turning to the DSPs to satiate their hunger for new (or at least different) content.

Film trends have always been cyclical, but it takes the collapse of one to form another, which is generally from oversaturation in mainstream media. Consider the trajectory of horror, for example. There was the impressive run of Universal monster movies in the ’30s and ’40s that were reimagined as made-for-TV Hammer films in the ’50s. The creature features of the Atomic Age provided great source material for body horror cult classics of the ’80s. The internet saw world cinema reach global audiences and led to a slew of English-speaking remakes. Perhaps this is why horror has the highest return on investment of any film genre.

But even the scary sagas are getting milked for all that they’re worth. Some recent examples include Candyman (2021), Scream (2022), Hellraiser (2022), Evil Dead Rise (2023), and The Exorcist: Believer (2023). And if the studios can’t concoct a sequel out of what little story remains from these enduring franchises, they just go back to before it began. This is how we got Saw X (2023) – yes, that’s the tenth instalment and there’s another on the way – after the disappointing Jigsaw (2017) and Spiral (2021). The most recent throwback was Apartment 7A (2024), a prequel to Rosemary’s Baby (1968) released more than 50 years later.

To get back to my point, when was the last time that you saw a good standalone movie with an original concept? The monopolisation of multibillion-dollar conglomerates like Disney create a negative feedback loop of content production and restrict creativity. In other words: the higher the quantity, the lower the quality. But even the most anticipated releases of 2024 bombed at the box office. Eli Roth’s adaptation of Borderlands made just $33 million on a budget of an estimated $115 million and Francis Ford Coppola’s passion project Megalopolis made a depressing $14.3 million on a budget of an estimated $120 million.

Not even reliable IPs like Batman are safe anymore, with Joker: Folie à Deux (2024) barely making its eyewatering $200 million budget back. Meanwhile, critical darlings like Anora (2024) and The Brutalist (2024) – both made for under $10 million – have already broken even and are both in the running for Best Picture at the 97^th Academy Awards. Distributed by Neon and A24 respectively, with The Brutalist running at a daunting 215 minutes long, this is a clear sign of an impending paradigm shift in modern cinema. If the Big Five don’t learn from these independent powerhouses soon, we’ll be in for a bleak future of moviegoing.

The numbers don’t lie: people want style and substance. I have a certain expectation going into a movie which allows me to suspend my disbelief and remove the critical lens so that I can still enjoy it. If it’s neither innovative, informative, nor interesting, I want it to at least be entertaining. Exaggerated escapism is rife in major studio productions at the expense of lazy writing and dispirited filmmakers. Perhaps I’m just cynical. I don’t want to come across as a pretentious snob, but these numbers are concerning. Fortunately, underdogs like Neon and A24 are bringing indie auteurs to the big screen and gatecrashing the dinner parties.

King Kong (2005)

It begs the question: are there any new ideas left? Maybe not, but that doesn’t mean we must continue to exploit the same cookie cutter formula to create something good. Hollywood relies on retcon scripts and nostalgic callbacks while smarter audiences are looking for a challenge. Independent filmmakers are upsetting the industry by forging a new era of conscious viewers who care more about a great story and striking visuals than corporate greed. There is hope yet for the future of cinema, but change has to come from underground.

Either way, I’ll still watch the next Alien or Spider-Man movie from the back row with a stupid grin on my face.