THB #378: Why IP Doesn't Suck

There are millions of bad ideas for movies.

When an idea joins the 20,000+ ideas that are being seriously considered to actually be made into movies (for cinemas or TV/streaming) or television shows, it is going to be put through the machinery of art and commerce, passion and self-protection, greed and ambivalence that too too solid artistry would be melted by. That process, good idea or bad idea, will churn out the (what?) 2000 or so produced filmed entertainments of any given year.

In the last 20 years, with the box office dominance of Marvel and other CG-heavy movies, we in the media have become lazy about pointing at “IP movies” like they are an encroaching evil that is eating the culture.

What was Gone With The Wind before it was a movie? Or The Godfather? Or Mary Poppins? Etc, etc, etc, ad infinitum.

The context of those conversion from other media is different. Stipulated. But the entire history of cinema is a reflection of history, stories previously told, and certainly in the last 50 years, reflections of cinema itself.

With the advent of home entertainment and even more so, streaming, we are soaking in the history of the cinema and to a lesser degree, television. How could anything be untouched by the past, IP or not?

Many feel that 1939 was the greatest year in cinema. Top grosser was Gone with the Wind, based on the huge book (back when people read). Gulliver’s Travels, Another Thin Man, The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Women, Tarzan Finds A Son!, The Wizard of Oz, and The Story of Vernon and Irene Castle make up the 8 of the 10 top box office titles based on hit books, hit Broadway shows, biographies of the famous or direct sequels.

Ninotchka was an original and would later be remade, both as itself and also as a musical with Fred Astaire (Silk Stockings). Mr. Smith Goes To Washington was based on an unpublished story.

Even in the MUBI list of best films of 1939, half of the Top Ten made in America are IP.

As the old saw goes, it’s not the origins of the boat, it’s the motion in the ocean.