(THAT ARE NOT BASED ON EXISTING INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY.)
ILLUSTRATION BY STEFANO SUMMO
At the beginning of 2022, industry operator and LWLies contributor Josh Slater-Williams made a pithy comment on social media in response to a list of the top 30 box office earners of 2021. He noted that only four films on the list were not based on existing intellectual property – and one of those films was the low-balling Ryan Reynolds vehicle Free Guy, which references a lot of existing IP as part of its story and production design. So that’s 26 of the top 30 films of 2021 – top in the sense that people were going to the cinema in droves to see them – all either sequels, remakes, refits, literary adaptations, musical adaptations, spin-offs, franchise extensions or, in the case of Jungle Cruise, based on the popular theme park ride of the same name. Piggybacking on existing IP – or, as it’s thought of in the industry, serving content to a pre-existing fanbase – is as old as the hills when it comes to the Hollywood industrial complex. That’s not to say that this mode of filmmaking inherently yields negative results, as among that top 30 there are a handful of indisputable bangers. Yet it’s hard to feel there’s not something wrong when an artform is at a place in its evolution where originality offers scant financial recompense, and those with the commissioning power are risk averse to the point where we’re careening into a glossy monoculture in which newfound progressive ideals are being buried in endless reams of give-the-people-what-they-want candy floss. In response to that list, we offer up the results of a poll surveying the best films of the 21st century – the catch being that every single one is a true original and was put out in the world in the hope that an audience would crave something different, and not more of the same.
PERSONAL TOP 10S WILL APPEAR ON LWLIES.COM
Personal top tens were supplied by the following contributors: Ege Apaydin, Mark Asch, Marina Ashioti, Anton Bitel, Anna Bogutskaya, Charles Bramesco, Cheyenne Bunsie, Anna Cale, Jake Cole, Philip Concannon, Lillian Crawford, Nicole Davis, Isaac Feldberg, Emma Fraser, Patrick Gamble, Katie Goh, Rōgan Graham, Steph Green, Glenn Heath Jr, Tom Huddleston, Pamela Hutchinson, David Jenkins, Trevor Johnston, Ariel Kling, Aimee Knight, Michael Leader, Saffron Maeve, Emily Maskell, Katherine McLaughlin, Ben R Nicholson, Caitlin Quinlan, Rafa Sales Ross, Fatima Sheriff, Josh Slater-Williams, Hannah Strong, Matt Thrift, Lou Thomas, Matt Turner, Sydney Urbanek, Laura Venning, Greg Wetherall, Sam Wigley, Bri
