{"id":161,"date":"2016-07-06T01:48:33","date_gmt":"2016-07-06T08:48:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2016\/07\/06\/has-hollywood-gone-too-far-with-sequels-by-clayton-pickard\/"},"modified":"2016-07-06T01:48:33","modified_gmt":"2016-07-06T08:48:33","slug":"has-hollywood-gone-too-far-with-sequels-by-clayton-pickard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/2016\/has-hollywood-gone-too-far-with-sequels-by-clayton-pickard\/","title":{"rendered":"Has Hollywood Gone Too Far With Sequels? By Clayton Pickard"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:WordDocument>   <w:View>Normal<\/w:View>   <w:Zoom>0<\/w:Zoom>   <w:PunctuationKerning\/>   <w:ValidateAgainstSchemas\/>   <w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false<\/w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>   <w:IgnoreMixedContent>false<\/w:IgnoreMixedContent>   <w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false<\/w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>   <w:Compatibility>    <w:BreakWrappedTables\/>    <w:SnapToGridInCell\/>    <w:WrapTextWithPunct\/>    <w:UseAsianBreakRules\/>    <w:DontGrowAutofit\/>   <\/w:Compatibility>   <w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4<\/w:BrowserLevel>  <\/w:WordDocument> <\/xml><![endif]--><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 115%\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"><a onfocus=\"this.blur()\" onclick=\"ps_imagemanager_popup(this.href,'AttackofSequels.jpg','263','192');return false\" href=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/AttackofSequels.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"150\" vspace=\"3\" hspace=\"6\" height=\"110\" border=\"0\" align=\"left\" alt=\"AttackofSequels.jpg\" title=\"AttackofSequels.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/.thumbs\/.AttackofSequels.jpg\" \/><\/a>Hollywood<\/span><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"> seems to be all about sequels and remakes these days. So far this year, 14 out of the top 20 U.S. films have been sequels or remakes. That\u2019s 70 percent! Does Hollywood keep making these sequels and remakes because they don\u2019t want to take any chances with new ideas and these are a known quantity?<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 115%\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\">The movie business wasn\u2019t always this way. Of the top ten films in 1985, only one was a sequel or a remake. In 1995, none of the top ten were sequels or remakes. But, by 2005, nine of the <\/span><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/Clayton.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"207\" vspace=\"3\" hspace=\"6\" height=\"250\" border=\"0\" align=\"right\" title=\"Clayton.jpg\" alt=\"Clayton.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/.thumbs\/.Clayton.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/span>top ten films were sequels or remakes. I was looking forward to a lot of the sequels this year: <em>Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2, Captain America: Civil War, Alice Through The Looking Glass<\/em> and <em>X Men: Apocalypse<\/em>. But, when I look back on the films I most enjoyed this past year, all of them are based on original ideas. For instance, <em>The Big Short, Spotlight, Room, Inside Out, When Marnie Was There<\/em> and <em>Monster Hunt<\/em>. For those of you who don\u2019t know <em>Monster Hunt<\/em>, it was the highest grossing film in China in 2015 and is the craziest, funniest, action-packed, original film I&#8217;ve seen in years. <\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\" style=\"line-height: 115%\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\">Some of the overwhelming amount of sequels and remakes were: <em>The Man From Uncle, Fantastic Four, Creed, Avengers Age of Ultron, Terminator: Genysis <\/em>and <em>Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation<\/em>. I didn\u2019t see <em>Creed,<\/em> I heard a lot of people loved it, but did we really need a Sylvester Stallone comeback? I did see <em>The Man From Uncle<\/em>, which was fun, but it was all style and no substance. <em>Fantastic Four<\/em> was a total waste of time and money. The plot and the acting were so uninteresting that it failed to hold my attention. I purposefully did not see <em>Terminator Genysis<\/em> because it looked like <\/span><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/IMG_0238.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"163\" vspace=\"3\" hspace=\"6\" height=\"250\" border=\"0\" align=\"left\" alt=\"IMG_0238.jpg\" title=\"IMG_0238.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/.thumbs\/.IMG_0238.jpg\" \/><\/a><\/span>a rehash of the last Terminator film. Nor did I choose to see <em>Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation<\/em>. It\u2019s the fifth film in the series and I feel they are milking the franchise for no reason besides money. They are even planning a sixth <em>Mission Impossible<\/em>!<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p class=\"MsoNormal\"><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: black\">A great place to see original, creative, theatrical films for kids is at children\u2019s film festivals. I have been going to the New York International Children\u2019s Film Festival for ten years now. I always see the most creative, visionary and uplifting films from around the world. They always premiere a Studio Ghibli film, which is how I became such a fan of that studio. There are children\u2019s film festivals all around the U.S. If there isn\u2019t one in your area, check out <\/span><u><span lang=\"EN\" style=\"font-size: 11pt; line-height: 115%; font-family: Arial; color: #1155cc\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gkids.com\/\"><span style=\"color: #1155cc\">www.gkids.com<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/u><span lang=\"EN\"> for a list of great children\u2019s films from prior festivals that you can get on DVD. And, don\u2019t forget to look out for KIDS FIRST! Film Festival partners such as the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"http:\/\/www.outreach.hawaii.edu\/summer\/kidsFirst.asp\">University  of Hawaii at Manoa<\/a> which is doing its 10<sup>th<\/sup> KIDS FIRST! Film Festival all summer long.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/p>\n<p><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>  <w:LatentStyles DefLockedState=\"false\" LatentStyleCount=\"156\">  <\/w:LatentStyles> <\/xml><![endif]--><!--[if !mso]><object  classid=\"clsid:38481807-CA0E-42D2-BF39-B33AF135CC4D\" id=ieooui><\/object> \n\n<style> st1\\:*{behavior:url(#ieooui) } <\/style>\n\n <![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 10]> \n\n<style>  \/* Style Definitions *\/  table.MsoNormalTable \t{mso-style-name:\"Table Normal\"; \tmso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; \tmso-tstyle-colband-size:0; \tmso-style-noshow:yes; \tmso-style-parent:\"\"; \tmso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt; \tmso-para-margin:0in; \tmso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; \tmso-pagination:widow-orphan; \tfont-size:10.0pt; \tfont-family:\"Times New Roman\"; \tmso-ansi-language:#0400; \tmso-fareast-language:#0400; \tmso-bidi-language:#0400;} <\/style>\n\n <![endif]--><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hollywood seems to be all about sequels and remakes these days. So far this year, 14 out of the top 20 U.S. films have been sequels or remakes. That\u2019s 70 percent! Does Hollywood keep making these sequels and remakes because they don\u2019t want to take any chances with new ideas and these are a known [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-161","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-film-critics-blog"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.kidsfirst.org\/juror\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}