Top Film Industry Stories of 2015:
#6 Nostalgia Rules

By Kim Hollis

January 20, 2016

2016's best movie couple?

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Movie fans and film commentators constantly bemoan the fact that Hollywood is out of original ideas. Unwanted sequels, terrible remakes, and book adaptations that miss the point are the norm. Still, even though people claim to want original concepts from the film industry, it’s the comfort food of the known quantity that draws people to theaters. 2016 was a standout example of this way of thinking, as nostalgia for days past heavily influenced a significant number of major releases - and for the most part, the studios and distributors that took advantage of the trend were rewarded financially.

Kid Stuff

One reason that films that evoke such feelings of nostalgia can perform so well is because they work on a multigenerational level. A number of 2016 films certainly qualified as properties that people enjoyed years ago as children, but now are able to share with their own kids. As such, these “new” movie releases become events. With so many competing media trying to capture consumer dollars, it’s becoming ever more important for studios and distributors to put forth product that will bring in entire families.

We’ll cover a couple of the biggies under this category a little later, but there were a few classic stories that made their way in a new form to the big screen in 2016. Things got started in January with the release of Paddington, an animated film with source material that dates all the way back to 1958. Paddington first came into existence as a beloved children’s book series by Michael Bond and illustrated by Peggy Fortnum. Although the story of the anthropomorphised bear from darkest Peru is obviously most popular in his home country of Great Britain, North American audiences thought fondly of the character as well, propelling the movie adaptation of his story to $76.3 million domestically.




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But Paddington was only getting things started. It had been more than 10 years since SpongeBob SquarePants graced the big screen in The SpongeBob SquarePants Movie. Based on a Nickelodeon animated series that began in 1999, the show was popular with kids, weirdos, and, er, people who enjoy a certain type of recreational substance. In 2016, it might have seemed like SpongeBob’s time should have been long past, but instead what we saw is that people who were preteens when the little yellow sponge was at the height of his popularity were now ready to introduce the character to their own kids. Also, it seems like countercultural icons may never go out of style. Under any circumstance, the first SpongeBob film made $88.4 million total, while the 2015 film, The SpongeBob Movie: Sponge Out of Water opened with $55.4 million. Its final domestic tally was $163 million, proving that people were ready and willing to revisit Bikini Bottom.

Women and girls of every possible demographic era have come to know and love Cinderella thanks to the 1950 animated film from Walt Disney. The princess’s castle is an iconic structure at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, and little girls wear Cinderella costumes every year at Halloween. Every girl who has ever dreamed of being a princess thinks of this fairy tale first and foremost. Since Disney has long understood the allure of this simple story, they decided to follow-up the massive success of 2014’s Maleficent with a similar live-action version of this beloved romance. It’s fair to say that the adaptation was a stunning success, bringing together princesses of all ages to propel the film to a $67.9 million debut. By the time it finished its run in domestic theaters, Cinderella would cross the $200 million mark. The nostalgia bug had bitten yet again.


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