Hollywood’s Transition from Classics to Cash Grabs

My analysis of top-grossing movies from 1929 to today

Image created by author with Bing Image Creator

It’s no surprise these days that most popular movies are sequels, remakes or parts of some “universe”.

As someone who’s not into Marvel or Disney and who thinks there’s no need to remake a good movie, there’s not much for me in the way of new Hollywood blockbusters. That’s cool, there are plenty of indie, foreign and critically acclaimed movies I can enjoy instead. Not to mention older movies.

But why does it seem like every movie made for mainstream audiences is the same movie?

Times have changed. As an 80s and 90s kid, I watched and loved all the big movies. Maybe it’s because I’m older, but I no longer enjoy popular films. Or maybe they’ve just become crummier. When I was a kid, there were plenty of cool and original movies that did well money-wise — ET, The Goonies, Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. But today? What’s going on?

There’s something you might not know about me — I’m a statistics nerd. So I analysed the top 10 grossing movies for each year since 1929 (the year the Oscars started) to dig deeper into the cinematic world.