I worry a lot about repeating myself in my work.
And I don’t just mean certain favorite words that are easily taken care of by searching and deleting.
I mean repeating themes, plots, descriptive phrases, even characters.

Apparently, the movie business doesn’t share that particular concern.

The list below is incomplete, but the gist of the message comes across. Here are just a few of the movies scheduled to be remade in the next year or two:

“Flatliners”
“Bride of Frankenstein”
“Total Recall”
“Barbarella”
“Damn Yankees”
“Buffy The Vampire Slayer”
“The Boys From Brazil”
“The Fury”
“The Man With The X-Ray Eyes”
“The Thing”
“Escape From New York”
“The Crow”
“Death Wish”
“Mad Max”
“The Birds”
“Romancing the Stone”
“Poltergeist”

My gut reaction to all this is WTF??
I think I was good for maybe 1-3 remakes a year—and even that was only if the new films had a new slant to offer, or could possibly do a better job. I have not seen that to be true (and btw, anybody who’d even ATTEMPT to remake Hitchcok is insane).
But the market is being flooded with these recycled films, and one has to wonder why. It’s certainly not because people are clamoring for them, or that new stories/screenplays aren’t being written.
The only reason I can think of is…fear.
Fear of exploring new directions. Fear of going against the grain. Fear of failure. If you can resuscitate a formula that’s worked in the past, you’re less likely to lose money on something unknown.

But I don’t think I like what it says for the future of struggling writers and artists, or for this society’s creative spirit.
And I have an awful feeling it may, in some form or another, be reflected in the publishing field as well.
Scary thoughts.