Peter 'Lordofthe Rings/KingKong' Jackson Says, Hollywood has a lack of original ideas

[Brian Damage]

....

GB: "District 9" is a bit of a rarity in the Comic-Con sector in that it's not an adaptation of a comic book or a toy, it's not a remake or a sequel, it's not based on an old television show....

PJ: Yeah, I guess so. I mean I guess Comic-Con in a way celebrates popular culture so its emphasis is always going to be on the culture that exists, I guess, which is clear enough. But I suppose it covers everything doesn’t it? It covers movies and TV and it’s obviously become a place where if you’ve got something new it’s a good place to expose it to the fans.

GB: Certainly, it's a place to introduce the new and celebrate the past, but I suppose what I was suggesting is that these days it seems difficult to make a big special-effects film unless it's based on some pre-existing, known quantity in pop-culture, such as a novel, comic book, video game, TV show, toy line or previous movie. You look at the Harry Potter films, "Iron Man," "Star Trek," "Transformers"...

PJ:I mean, personally I think that’s one of the most depressing things about the film industry generally today. The writers and directors should be blamed just as much as the studios because really everything seems to be a remake or adapting a 1970s TV show that was never particularly good. Why anyone thinks that it would be a good feature film now, you know, goodness knows why. And I guess it’s easy to say it's security that you know a studio is only prepared to put $150 million or $200 million into something if it’s a known quantity. But at the same time I’m also aware that audiences are getting fed up with the lack of original ideas and original stories. And if you look back to the great days of "Star Wars" and "Indiana Jones" and those sorts of movies, they weren’t based on TV shows, they weren’t based on comics. They were inspired by them and they had DNA in them which came from years of Flash Gordon and various things in the past but nonetheless they were original. And yet we seem to be incapable as a general industry, which includes not just the studios but the filmmakers and writers and directors, we seem to be incapable of doing that now for some reason. It’s a little bit depressing. But hopefully it’s a cycle. Everything in the film business tends to be cyclic and hopefully this all drains itself out in a couple years and we’ll be back into original stories again.

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/hero...nal-ideas.html

[Dr. Thong]

I love Peter Jackson for giving us The Lord Of The Rings trilogy, but his last feature was a remake of King Kong, which had already been remade several times over (if you count sequels and offshoots), so I think he might've thought better before speaking out.

But I do agree with him. Hollywood is creatively dead. The number of remakes that have occured and/or are in the works is staggering. Most movies are conceived these days in terms of a franchise, rather than just making one good film.

And in some cases, they're remaking stuff that wasn't very good in the first place. Hollywood would rather go with something that has name recognition because they can sell it easier than something original or different.

[catlover79]

Hollywood? Lack of original ideas?? That's the understatement of the century!!

[waichingliu81]

this sounds more like pot calling the kettle black. this coming from the guy who gave us lord of the rings and king kong, one of which was based on the books, the other being a remake.

like he was ever original himself .