Alt hypothesis about why we’re so mired in reboots and reruns: the capex of investing in a new set of characters gets higher every year as humans get more complex, so you want to amortize investment over more stories.
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That’s one charitable hypothesis. Like saying that a drunk in the night wants to amortize his ability to look for a lost watch by only searching under streetlights.
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Don’t you think it’s just about maximizing risk-adjusted returns? A lot of new characters and narratives just don’t work.
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This lines up w the consolidation of movie studios. Existing IP de-risks new movies/shows *and* across existing merchandise and movies/shows.
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That’s the supply side.
The demand side is finding something you want to watch in a sea of content.
Both matter.
More important, it’s GOOD not bad.
Anything that increases our shared culture/references is a win.
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I think it's also partly a logical extension of the wisdom that "nothing sells backlist like frontlist".
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Evolutionary theory version - certain characters have been so present in your life that they hijack a Dunbar slot and you’re inevitably interested in ‘what’s going on with them?’ even if its no different/less fun than when you first met them...?
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We've just realized that both audience and characters can be complex, and that interactions between audiences and characters can evolve over time. Building on complexity adds nuance and therefore keeps things interesting to long tail chasers and n00bs alike.
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Looking at old Hollywood, or any period really, I'm not convinced this era is more remake/sequel heavy than before. The hits tend to be, but that's driven by people mostly avoiding theaters except for big spectacles.
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