OPINION: Disney Has Gutted Originality in Hollywood

Patterns in Hollywood are showing a frightening decrease in cinema’s quality.

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Disney’s greed is affecting the entertainment industry in a multitude of ways.

We are living in the Disney era. Disney has monopolized Hollywood, and we love them for it.

This is the 2019 box office thus far. You might notice that the top six movies are all Disney properties or, in Spider-Man: FFH’s case, Disney affiliated. 2019 was also a groundbreaking year because James Cameron’s 2009 film Avatar was dethroned from the title of highest-grossing film of all time by Disney’s Avengers: Endgame.  This is only 2019, of course.

Some of Disney’s cinematic triumphs include the fourth spot on the highest-grossing films of all time list, belonging to Star Wars: The Force Awakens, which also gives them the feat of highest-grossing science fiction film of all time. The highest-grossing animated film of all time is Disney’s Frozen, currently taking the fifteenth spot on the highest-grossing films list and at its peak, taking the fifth spot.

Disney’s Midas Touch proves true on the properties of other companies as well, as Spider-Man: Far From Home, while distributed by Sony Pictures, was produced by Marvel Studios (property of Disney), and became Sony’s highest-grossing film along with the highest-grossing Spider-Man film of all time (this accounts for inflation).

So what can be seen here? Is the Mouse just that successful? Are the movies just that good? Has Disney perfected cinema?

No.

Disney has acquired brands like in a game of Monopoly, and with their new franchises dominated all of Hollywood, ravaging originality and American cinema in the process.

When one thinks of films that have defined cinema, there are sundry choices and options. Every genre and each flavor of theater has its own cinema-defining film, be it Star Wars for sci-fi, or The Exorcist for horror, and other classics such as Gone With the Wind, E.T. the Extraterrestrial, and Titanic are the films which may come to mind, and rightfully so for their long-lasting impacts on cinema.

One of the things you will notice is that none of these films are direct adaptations. They are not reboots to past films, sequels, nor are they prequels. They were original films, with inspirations from history and literature, but not a single film listed there was an adaptation. The former beauty of cinema was that the greatest films were those that told original and groundbreaking stories which impacted and inspired all the rest of Hollywood. What has Disney inspired in Hollywood? Dozens upon dozens of copycats, reboots, sequels, and Marvel Studios’ ingenious (for the time) idea of a shared cinematic universe has been unsuccessfully attempted by both Universal and Warner Bros. Disney’s films may have impressive quality to them, but they spread triteness through Hollywood like wildfire.

Hollywood needs some inspiration to their films. Cinema’s masterpieces were original stories, with ideas that didn’t think outside the box, but broke it entirely, allowing all other films to reach this same echelon of creativity and quality. Movies nowadays appeal to what audiences want, but not what Hollywood needs. The hurling of sequels and reboots at audiences when there are new stories to be told is the equivalent of receiving sweets for dinner. There is room for sequels and reboots, but they cannot dominate Hollywood if originality is to even exist.

Disney has made it profitable to sell the same movie. They may not be the only ones rehashing old properties (Universal’s Jurassic World comes to mind) but they are the most efficient of cinema’s murderers.