In a world dominated by media and television, you don’t have to wait long before you’ll see an ad or preview for yet another franchise movie. Whether it be Star Wars or various superhero movies, an incredibly large percentage of new releases each year have been confined to the “sequel” or “reboot” category. This is not to say that these movies are not entertaining. I personally enjoy these movies very much; however, lack of truly original films have severely limited the creativity of Hollywood.

Ancient cult classics like Star Wars, Star Trek, and Blade Runner are being revived instead of surpassed by new “classic” movies. Out of the top ten grossing movies thus far in 2017, only two have been original. The others have either been classified as sequels or superhero movies.

We have to wonder, however, if studios are not at fault, but consumers. When judged by the Rotten Tomatoes “Tomatometer”, dozens of movies this year were well over 90% when judged by various critics. However, familiar brands were the ones that pulled through in the box office. Even if movies like Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales or Transformers: The Last Knight received poor reviews, they still received large amounts of box office intake due to their familiarity.

If you think about it, studios are simply being smart about the kinds of movies they’re releasing. If you could make $100 million more off of a franchise then off of a potentially disastrous original film, many studios will take the easy route.

However, I believe that this is a very dangerous path to follow. Due to this lack of creative movies, we also receive a lack of creative directors. Producers like Michael Bay (director of Transformers) who are repeatedly criticized for their similar plot lines and shortage of cleverness get paid far more than indy directors who make incredible movies but hardly share the limelight. If they continue along this path, we will be left with bland, two-dimensional movies that aren’t worth our time.

Overall, it is up to studios to decide what they are going to do with the resources they have. Will they all simply focus on rebooting classic franchises again and again, or will they challenge themselves to make new franchises and introduce fresh ideas, rather than simply following the same old template.