Cinema and film in general is one of the youngest art forms to enter the public space. Yes, it does build upon centuries if not millennia of plays and theatre, acting as an art is much older but movies are a relatively recent invention.
However, ironically, most films lately seem to have lost their creative nature. It has become a complaint amongst movie goers lately. Everything is either a sequel, an adaptation or a reboot. But how is an art so relatively young, already starved of new ideas for the consumer? The short answer is, it's not. Rather film being one of the most popular mediums has fallen victim to a pandemic sweeping most of the arts: Monetization.
It is neither secret nor sin that the arts are a tool from which all involved in the creation of a particular art make money. To make money from one's passion does not fall foul of anything. However, a growing trend, especially prevalent in films lately, has been to prioritise making money at the expense of creativity.
Paramount Pictures recently released Gladiator 2, a sequel to the critically acclaimed Gladiator that first hit big screens 24 years earlier. Despite a very stable ensemble cast, the film opened to very mixed reviews, and rightly so. For the most part, the film felt like a cash grab building on the pre-existing success of the first film. It adds nothing to the already existing narrative or universe created from the first movie. Put simply, Gladiator 2 does not capture the imagination the way Gladiator did.
But as stated before this is simply an ongoing problem in the film industry. The problem being, large production companies don't want to take risks.
For large production companies or music labels or any form of large corporation that invests funding into arts, they're looking for a return in investment. There is nothing wrong with wanting to generate profit from an investment, it's business 101. More so why not play it safe?
The lack of creativity and innovation in the arts stems from the fact that companies want to play it safe. Take what's proven to work. In the case of films, you can do a sequel or a reboot or adapt an existing work of art with an already established audience. Or do something like Marvel and create a franchise of films and shows, or manufacture your own golden goose from which you can always make a new movie and make more money (see Monsterverse).
The problem is playing it safe is antagonistic to art. The creation of art is not a safe endeavour. In its purest form art is created by the artist as an expression. Either an emotion or a narrative that has inspired them that they simply must put it out. Regardless of whether the audience has shown any prior interest.
Thus we arrive at the impasse we find ourselves in between art and monetization. Monetization as a term is one that has re-entered the public headspace recently in relation to YouTube and other content creators. Broadly speaking, it is the process of converting something into money, with many thinking about content creators making money off their platforms.
But with monetization becoming the lead goal for many artists and, on larger scales, their investors (music labels, production companies, publishing houses, etc.). Creativity takes a back seat to what works.
An extreme example is already in effect with the micromanagement prevalent in the South Korean music industry, where large labels dictate every detail about the music being created.
In effect, the art either becomes diluted and loses its soul as it is compromised. In effect, the art loses its creativity in order to fit in the box of what “works”. In effect the art dies.
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