Hollywood Finding Original Ideas Don’t Pay At The Box Office

Hollywood has long been dependent on existing material for its biggest hits. Going all the way back to Gone With the Wind and The Wizard of Oz in the 1930s, producers and directors have seen the value of adapting books for the big screen, knowing these works already have built-in audiences and the characters are well-established.

Of course, a chorus of critics have encouraged Hollywood to stop with the adaptations and reboots of previous franchises—why not create something new?

Well, here’s the answer: The new stuff isn’t faring all that well at the box office. Over the past two years, as theaters move past the COVID-induced downturn, original screenplays have struggled to connect with audiences.

And if there’s one thing you can say about Hollywood, it is that producers and directors notice the trends. Original material isn’t a sure thing, and that will impact what movies are made in coming years.

Original Films Struggle At The Box Office

Interestingly, some of the flops include big-name stars, which seems to underscore that it’s the material, not the name on the marquee, that is the problem. Amazon’s Red One, a 2024 holiday film starring Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson and Chris Evans, made $97 million domestically, including $32 million in its opening weekend (Johnson himself got a reported $50 million to make the film).

While that’s not terrible, it becomes much more disappointing when you consider the film’s $200 million budget. It brought in even less abroad, meaning it failed to earn back its budget.

Similarly, Kevin Costner, whose career was revived by starring in Yellowstone, starred in 2024’s Horizon: An American Saga Chapter 1, a passion project that he directed, produced and co-wrote. The film failed to break $40 million at the box office and did not recoup its reported $50 million to $100 million budget, a large portion of which Costner provided.

The second chapter in the series is slated to be released this year after debuting at the Venice International Film Festival—but the poor performance has cast doubt on the future of chapters three and four.

One could argue that those two films were savaged by critics and had issues that negate their star power. For example, Horizon runs three hours long, which is never idea commercially.

But even original movies getting decent reviews have failed to entice audiences. Drop, an original about a woman coerced into trying to kill her date, made only $7.5 million in its recent opening weekend.

Will Bad Box Office Stop Hollywood From Greenlighting Originals?

It is always hard to predict Hollywood, where everything from economics to politics to who’s running the studio impacts what films move forward. The attention paid to the lack of successful originals, including a story in The Wall Street Journal, could impact decisions.

On the other hand, there is such a glut of adaptations that there also simply may not be room for many originals to get the greenlight. Reboots also continue to be popular because Hollywood favors things with built-in audiences. Originals always represent a gamble because they lack that initial goodwill.