Studios are terrified of original stories. The 2026 slate is dominated by highly anticipated sequels, such as Spider-Man: Brand New Day, Avengers: Doomsday, Moana (a live-action remake), and Dune: Part Three. Verily, the top three biggest box office hits of 2025 were all sequels, proving the whole game is basically franchises running the show now. Where are the original films?

This year’s CinemaCon has either sequels or films adapted from games, including Warner Bros’ The Revenge of La Llaorna, Final Destination 7, The Lord of the Rings: The Hunt for Gollum, Practical Magic 2, Mortal Kombat 2, Ocean’s prequel, Evil Dead Burn and Wrath, Zach Cregger’s Weapons spin-off Gladys, The Conjuring: First Communion, and Game of Thrones film titled Aegon’s Conquest. 

The End of Oak Street, Digger, and Tim Miller’s Shiver are the only original stories from Warner Bros. In a release calendar increasingly shaped by established franchises and shared universes, the count of these films represents a shrinking but still vital space for new ideas.  

Deadline recently mentioned Star Wars: The Mandalorian & Grogu eyes an $80 million opening, which means sequels make it easier for studios to predict profits and reduce the risk-taking jumps they would otherwise need to make when going for originals. Franchise films deliver higher opening weekends and more predictable international returns. 

Originality is feared while financial return remains the priority. The most profitable empire, at one point, became confusing, such as Star Wars, The Matrix, Pirates of the Caribbean, and even Avatar, mocked as an overbudget gamble, let alone a global phenomenon.

In an era of shorter attention spans and crowded entertainment choices, known brands, characters, and franchises provide comfort and certainty for the studios. It makes it favorable for the studios as well as audiences to choose a sequel over an unknown original. 

And yet, 2025’s Sinners broke nomination records as an original screenplay. The studios have the data and proofs, but are still afraid to take that leap of faith, as it is easier to drive engagement through familiarity. Yet another sequel gets greenlit now and again. 

Attention is now fragmented, personalized, and algorithmically controlled. Netflix’s recent ad says “attention is earned,” which is rightfully so, as studios are no longer in the film business; they are in the “attention-gaining” business. The audience now has to choose between a two-hour drama and TikTok, YouTube, group chats, emails, and a lame meme with a dancing strawberry. 

Even the film trailers are treated as content that is cut around and made into “viral moments,” some memorable dialogues are engineered for social-media circulation, most notably in the form of memes. The goal is no longer to tell a simple story- it is to generate an online conversation that goes within an algorithmic loop.

The beauty of filmmakers emerging from YouTube lies in how they cut their teeth comprehending the architecture of attention itself. Unfettered by the rigidity of film schools, they operate with an understanding of the fragile tension of keeping audiences locked in. Creators like Curry Barker (Obsession), Chris Stuckmann (Shelby Oaks), and Kane Parsons (Backrooms) are proving that fear doesn’t need massive studio budgets to feel effective. Sometimes all it takes is a cheap camera, an unsettling idea, and the kind of raw creativity Hollywood often struggles to replicate. 

Ryan Gosling, who has been enjoying massive success with the adaptation Project Hail Mary (2026), explained that it is not the audience’s responsibility to “save” movie theaters but rather Hollywood’s to create films that are compelling enough to make people want to go to the cinema. Films like DC Studios’ upcoming Supergirl and Avengers: Doomsday) promise massive cinematic spectacle, but visual scale alone isn’t enough — they need to leave a lasting impression. In an era where movies are competing with everything from streaming platforms to short-form content, memorability has become just as crucial as spectacle. 

So it again trickles down to attention, for which Hollywood has apparently taken a shortcut: making sequels with familiar characters and storylines but ignoring the fact that original films matter. They need to create new cultural moments and not recycled ones, introduce new characters, worlds, and mythology, push storytelling forward instead of sideways, and build future franchises instead of endlessly exploiting the existing ones. 

Every franchise studio depends on sequels today, but every “safe bet” started as an original task. If cinema becomes only a business of sequels, it stops being a medium of discovery. And when storytelling stops taking risks, audiences eventually stop caring. People don’t watch what’s good; they watch what grabs them fastest.

So, now filmmakers are caught between two worlds: entertainment vs art, distraction vs depth, hook vs meaning. Are films losing or are they just refusing to adapt? Yes, it’s an uneven playing field. But maybe too many films still expect attention instead of earning it. 

Article Courtesy of Madiha Ali

Feature Image Credit to Warner Bros. | Still from ‘Dune: Part Two’