Forbes.com released a list of the top five grossing movies for this year, and wouldn’t you know it, they’re all sequels except #5.
1. Toy Story 3 – $895 Million
2. Shrek Forever – $663 million
3. Twilight – Eclipse – $650 million
4. Iron Man 2 – $622 million
5. Inception – $478 million
Now I don’t know what to say about this, because admittedly I want to see Toy Story 3 and Shrek Forever, though I’m not as enthusiastic about Shrek. Twilight almost doesn’t count because it’s part of a series of books, and it doesn’t seem as horrible to read a series of books. I’m not sure why that is. But Iron Man 2. Yeah, sequel, superhero, superhero sequel. Yeah. I saw the first one, and I tell you the second one isn’t… hmm, I didn’t see the first one actually. Yeah. Retroactively staying the course.
What I know is that I hear a lot of talk about Hollywood being nothing but sequels and superhero movies and TV show remakes and nothing original, but for some reason we just keep shelling out the money for it. It’s almost like we do the opposite of what we think is right for us. Nah, that would be silly.
I don’t know what to do though. I could conceivably stop watching everything that is a sequel, superhero movie, TV show remake, A Christmas Carol, and anything starring Hugh Grant, even if it meant missing Toy Story 3, but I don’t think it would change much.
I remember seeing two movies in the Fort Worth/Dallas area where the movies weren’t being shown in very many cities, so it was almost a privilege to see them. One was Robotech: The Movie and the other was Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Right. Both of which were TV show remakes.
Maybe there isn’t really a problem here. Maybe we just think we’re tired of it. Maybe the remakes and reimaginings are good for us somehow. Maybe there was no reason to include Hugh Grant on my list up there since he doesn’t really do any of those types of movies. We’re just a strange culture is all. Hard to entertain, even with entertainment. And at least they never made Titanic 2. But I’m sure they regret that they couldn’t.