Media Overconsumption Has Made Creativity In The Movie Industry Impossible

If you’ve been keeping an eye on the recent shows and movies hitting streaming services and theaters near you, you might have noticed the same trend that I have been picking up on. There are many recycled titles being marketed as new series, reboots, live action remakes, spinoffs and sequels. But is this really what people want from the entertainment industry?

Examples of said recycled titles would include the HBO Max “Harry Potter” series reboot, a Netflix series reboot of the beloved classic “13 Going On 30,” a live-action version of “Moana,” a Disney movie that hit theaters less than a decade ago and classic sequels like “Spider-Man: Brand New Day,” which is now one of the 11 Spider-Man movies to have been released in the last 25 years. And let’s not forget “ The Devil Wears Prada 2,” a sequel coming out 20 years after the original. 

What is causing this, you might ask. Well, I have a theory. I believe that the overconsumption of mainstream media is hindering the entertainment industry’s ability to produce fresh, new and original content. With TikTok romanticizing the classic ‘90s rom-coms, the extremely high ratings of the Spider-Man movies for the last two decades and the fear of not being able to deliver on the high expectations of their past successes, big-time movie makers are trying to stick to what they know. Within the last 10 years, Disney has produced eight live-action versions of the classic princess movies.

The question is, are audiences pleased with this recent trend? According to MetaScore and Critic, eight of the 14 Disney live-action remakes have scored lower than a 60% on popular rating apps, with some like “Pinocchio” scoring as low as 27%. Even the cherished “Mission: Impossible” movies released another sequel, the eighth, to be exact, in 2025, which scored roughly 80% on Rotten Tomatoes. So it’s not like these movies are getting the fans ranting and raving about them. 

So what can be done about this? I think that it will take bravery to branch out from what has always worked, and perhaps even the absence of media influence in the creative process of movie-making. Producers shouldn’t worry about what’s trending on social media or what has done well in the past. The art of film is the process of telling a good story, and while rereading a book occasionally is nice, when it comes to visual entertainment, viewers want to see an out-of-the-ordinary story play out that they’ve never seen or even heard of before. The fun part of watching movies is not knowing how it’s going to play out at the end. 

With mainstream media centering on cult classics, people on social media are creating content for older movies through edits, video trends, fashion trends and more, all stemming from those older movies. I think the film industry is taking those trends as signs that people want them to bring those movies back, but that is not necessarily the case. 

There have been plenty of trends that have centered around newly released movies and shows, such as the HBO Max original series, “Heated Rivalry,” that had the internet wrapped around its finger, with multiple trends following show’s release. Or, “Sinners,” which had a song that was written for the film that gained popularity with the creation of its own trend on TikTok, where they would apply the song to characters from other popular shows and movies like Wicked and Stranger Things. These novel movies and series are getting the same amount of traction, if not more, than that of the movies and shows that are reboots, sequels and spin-offs.

Some more examples of successful, stand-alone, original movies and shows would be the Prime Video original “Invincible,” an entirely new animated superhero show, which scored a whopping 99% on Rotten Tomatoes, the A24 sports drama “Marty Supreme,” that had people in theaters during one of the biggest holidays and earned a 93% on Rotten Tomatoes and finally “Sentimental Value,” a dramedy that followed relatable, tragic characters through life’s challenges and had a solid 95% on Rotten Tomatoes.

The film industry should take films and series like these in stride and feel motivated to take the risk of creating a new movie. The media appreciates the classics for exactly what they are, classics. We don’t need new versions of old comfort movies and shows; they’re perfect the way they are. We go to the movies and binge-watch series to escape everyday life and the mundane, day-to-day tasks, so all we are asking for is a story that is stimulating and compelling enough to escape the stress of the real world for just a couple of hours.

• entertainment
• media
• movies
• opinion
• reboots
• sequels
• social media
• spinoffs
• trends