Before streaming took over, there was a brief moment when entertainment felt balanced. Between the mid-2000s and early 2010s, platforms such as YouTube and other Social Media were emerging, and satellite TV was thriving. In Indonesia, there were numerous satellite TV providers, but the most notable was Indovision. I still remember the shows I watched on it: from Disney, Phineas and Ferb; from Cartoon Network, its flagship hits like Ben 10 or Adventure Time; from Nickelodeon, Spongebob.
The movies I watched were just as memorable---from Back to the Future to Big Hero 6. These shows and films shaped how I imagined what was ahead. Watching them made me feel optimistic about the future; Back to the Future, for instance, made me excited about the future. Phineas and Ferb became a wonder to me, a show that was both fun and somehow made me scientifically curious, and The Amazing World of Gumball? Pure chaos, yet somehow one of my all-time favorites. The creativity poured into these shows gave me the expectation that entertainment would only keep getting better.
Fast forward today, when I walk into my local cinema, most of the movies on display are ones that 10-year-old me would already recognize. How to Train Your Dragon Live Action, M3GAN 2.0, Lilo & Stitch Live Action, Mission: Impossible: The Final Reckoning. All are familiar titles, just repackaged.
Seeing nothing interesting, I opened my Disney+, hoping the streaming app would offer something new. Intermezzo, if my 10-year-old self knew there was a platform to endlessly rewatch favorites and discover new Disney shows, he'd be ecstatic. But as I scrolled, the first recommendation was Snow White Live Action. Then Phineas and Ferb, Season 5 --- didn't that show end properly back in 2015? Then, Mufasa: The Lion King, a live-action prequel to a beloved cartoon.
I stopped scrolling after that. I tried to open another streaming app. It doesn't look any better. In HBO, they are reviving Gumball with another season. It seems that western media companies are reviving old shows with a sequel, prequel, or live-action. One of the most glaring examples is Star Wars. What was once a six-film saga with two animated spin-offs has now expanded into nine films and eight animated series. What happened to originality? Has Hollywood just become greedy?
Optimism & Pessimism?
Hollywood's obsession with reviving familiar IPs might not be driven by greed alone. As complex system theory suggests, movies emerge from interconnected creative, social, and economic dynamics (Vany, 2005). By that definition, we have to consider the historical context in which these iconic movies and shows first emerged. Back to the Future was released in 1985, Indiana Jones, and Jurassic Park were released during the 1990s. Animated shows like Phineas and Ferb, The Amazing World of Gumball, Ben 10, and others came out between the mid-2000s and early 2010s. The common thread between them? These shows and movies were released when confidence in the economy was high.
Confidence in the economy, particularly in the US, could be seen with the Consumer Confidence Index or CCI. This index measures the confidence of the people regarding their sentiments on the general economic situation. The higher the CCI means the higher people's confidence in the economy. A few examples are when Back To The Future was released in 1985, then Jurassic Park in 1993, their CCIs respectively being 96.5 and 82.1 What about the movies being released today---like the ones mentioned earlier? In 2025, the CCI at May sits at 56.
Does this mean CCI has a causal effect on movie production? The higher the CCI means more original films and vice versa? Rather than a simple linear relationship, CCI should be viewed as one of several signals for producers. As Ludvigson (2004) found that CCI could have some predictive power on spending. Thus, CCI could be seen as a sign for producers on the people's willingness to spend.
This is illustrated by the case of 2017, when the CCI stood at a strong 96.3---yet Disney still released sequels like Beauty and the Beast Live Action, Cars 3, and Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales. Despite high consumer confidence, Disney still leaned on familiar intellectual properties. But here's where it gets interesting: in 2017, major studios produced 12 original films compared to 24 recycled (including prequels, sequels, remake, live-action version) ones---a 1:2 ratio. In 2024, original films dropped to 4, while recycled ones rose to 27, almost a 1:7 ratio. And in 2025 (as of mid-year), the ratio is 4 original films versus 15 recycled. With CCI scores for 2024 and 2025 significantly lower than in 2017. As the data shows, periods of higher consumer confidence tend to coincide with a more balanced output between original and recycled films. In contrast, lower CCI levels are often accompanied by a heavier reliance on recycled content. While this doesn't confirm a direct causal link, it indicates that studios may factor in economic sentiment when deciding how much creative risk to take. Keep in note, all films that are mentioned are films that went into the theater.