Dakota Johnson is speaking out: We need more original films. The “Materialists” star said during her recent appearance on “Hot Ones” that modern Hollywood is reliant on remakes and IP, which audiences “don’t want.” In turn, according to actress/producer Johnson, it’s a “mess.”
“When something does well, studios want to keep that going so they remake the same things,” she said, “but humans don’t want that. They want fresh, they want to feel new things, experience new things, see new things, so I don’t know, I guess it’s all just a bit of a mess right now, isn’t it?”
Johnson continued, “I think it’s hard when creative decisions are made by committee and it’s hard when creative decisions are made by people who don’t even really watch movies or know anything about them, and that tends to be what’s occurring a lot.”
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This isn’t the first time that Johnson has deemed the studio system a corporate “committee.” Johnson told the Los Angeles Times that “a lot of creative decisions are made by committee or made by people who don’t have a creative bone in their body,” such as the case for her superhero flop “Madame Web.”
Johnson added, “It’s really hard to make art that way. Or to make something entertaining that way. And I think unfortunately with ‘Madame Web,’ it started out as something and turned into something else. And I was just sort of along for the ride at that point. But that happens. Bigger-budget movies fail all the time.”
Thankfully, there are still bigger budget (or at least mid-tier budget) original films that are going the distance at the box office, proving that audiences do in fact want new stories. One of those new original films includes “Sinners,” which Johnson’s fellow filmmakers have embraced as an “encouraging” step for non-IP films being greenlit.
Sam Rockwell recently told Variety that “Sinners” succeeding at the box office is reignites hope for Hollywood. “It was encouraging because it was rated R, you know? The sexuality felt palpable,” Rockwell said. “And the fact that it made a bunch of money while mixing all these genres — ‘From Dusk Till Dawn,’ ‘Sounder,’ ‘Devil in a Blue Dress’ — I thought that was encouraging. It’s a big swing.”
