Will the future of Hollywood cinema only consist of sequels?

Is a number 2 absolutely necessary attached to the title to be successful? This year, the answer is yes. Undoubtedly yes. To the point of worrying about Hollywood's propensity to no longer create.

The figures of global box office of 2024 are edifying:

• The 10 films that make up the Top 10 of the year are Hollywood sequels
• 16 of the 20 biggest hits are Hollywood sequels
• 50% of the 50 biggest blockbusters of 2024 in the world are Hollywood sequels
• 10 billion dollars have been accumulated by all Hollywood sequels at the 2024 box office
• 30% of total 2024 box office revenues (or 35 billion today) come from Hollywood sequels

The incredible success of Moana 2in recent days, is putting a piece back into the machine of a debate doomed to never finding its truth. The little adventurer from the Pacific sets out again on the ocean and breaks all the records box office 2024. Like Riley in Vice-Versa 2 or Gru in Despicable Me 4 or the monsters in Godzilla x Kong 2. The culture of déjà vu entertainment is crushing the entire American industry. The sequels – sequels Or prequels confused – are everywhere and represent the majority of theatrical successes all around the globe. So should we see a problem there?

First of all, this orientation is not new. The major studios have been banking on these continuations for several decades. Without necessarily putting the forms into it at the start. Of Highlander 2 has The Fly 2 passing through Beverly Hills Cop 2, Staying Alive Or Speed ​​2the sequels initially had a bad reputation. But after the 21st century, they have been rethought through a form of new prestige, to make them almost a genre in themselves. Previously poorly perceived by the public (we spoke of them as vulgar cash machines), the sequels are now part of the decor, they are incorporated into franchises stamped with a certain ambition, and are accompanied by this idea of ​​a “guaranteed” spectacle. As if to justify the price of the place – increasingly higher. With this in mind, the industry no longer really seeks to make masterpieces, but happily settles for average films, satisfactory at best, not to mention honest in the literal sense: we are not robbing the viewer. The promised entertainment is there. And it's a reality: Godzilla x Kong: The New Kingdom was an eye-catcher. Deadpool 3 was really fun. Twisters full of energy. Planet of the Apes: The New Kingdom undeniably impressive. And Beetlejuice2 took responsibility for his fan service properly.

This is the direction that the American cinema of tomorrow seems to be heading headlong, leading Variety to write today: “Hollywood sequel culture is a relatively healthy creative form. And given its current commercial dominance, in an industry under enough existential threat to need every theatrical success it can get, no sane person would dispute the need to make these films .”

Implied: it is the sequels which attract spectators to dark rooms, thereby allowing Anorahas Conclavehas Poor Creatures or to Iron Claw to exist. “Sequels ensure the survival of cinema, without nourishing it” summarizes Variety. But here also arises the crux of the problem: by dint of cannibalizing itself, will Hollywood still have material in future decades? What sequels to invent if there is no longer an original to continue? Pixar and its boss, Pete Docter, assume and have already announced that they have decided to put a stop to original stories. Bob Iger, the boss of Disney, insists that he does not want to. “apologize for following up” thus summarizing the absolute diktat of the box office: “It's gotten to the point where if one of our films doesn't make $1 billion at the box office, we're disappointed! That's an incredibly high standard.”

Or cinema seen through the one and only prism of business. This form of creative renunciation, encouraged by an industry disrupted by streaming, even goes beyond sequels. Today, the famous “IP” (these licenses from Intellectual Properties) are everywhere in our rooms. CNBC assures that franchise films already represented around 40% of total American releases in 2019. And based on the currently known schedule, these are more than 50% of films from the six major studios – Universal Disney, Warner Bros., Paramount , Sony and Lionsgate – which will be linked to IPs in 2025 in cinema! What will we see? Paddington 3 (in January), Bridget Jones 4 (in February), Mission Impossible 8 (in May), Jurassic World 4 (in July), Conjuring 4 (in September), Mortal Kombat 2 (in October), Zootopia 2 And Elusive 3 (in November) or Avatar 3 (in December).“Studios admit that familiar products are what most viewers are going to now”summarizes a Comscore analyst for CNBC. It must be said that to find a trace of a totally original film in the top 10 of the global box office – which is neither adapted from an IP, nor from a franchise, nor from a novel, nor a biopic – it must be we have to go back 10 years, to the time ofInterstellar (2014) and its 680 million…

And in France?

Does the cultural exception extend all the way to the box office in France? Not totally. There are also franchises here and producers sometimes rely on successful sequels or IPs. Asterix and Obelix: The Middle Kingdom (by Guillaume Canet), the new opus among the Gauls, was for example the biggest success of the year 2023 (4.6 million admissions).

But the trend is much less significant. A host of original works still manage to find their way into French studios and find a place of choice in French cinemas. The proof with the unexpected cardboard ofA little something extrasimagined by Artus, biggest box office success in 2024 (11 million admissions). Phew Love (by Gilles Lellouche) passed 4 million and Cocorico (by Julien Hervé) came close to 2 million whileEmilia Pérez (by Jacques Audiard) was seen by 1 million spectators. With us, the successful sequels of 2024, over a million, are limited to Retirement home 2 (by Claude Zidi Jr.) and Ducobu goes green (by Élie Semoun)…