One of my favorite authors as a child was undoubtedly Roald Dahl. You name a book of his, I likely devoured its bizarre contents in a sitting or two: “Fantastic Mr. Fox,” “Matilda,” “The Witches,” “The BFG” and “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory” are among the stories that stand out.
Though all of these aforementioned stories have been made into movies over the years, perhaps one that stands out amongst the others is “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.” The original film — renamed to “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory” — was released in 1971, just a few years after the book was published.
If you ask me, it’s the best version of the film. Some say the 2005 version starring Johnny Depp is better. And surely there are people who lie to themselves and say that 2023’s “Wonka” prequel is the best version.
That’s a lot of Wonka content. Some, myself included, might say it’s too much. But Dahl’s story isn’t the only example of this. Take the recent “Mean Girls” movie: It’s a movie-musical based on a musical, which is based on a movie, which is based on a book.
That’s a lot of “Mean Girls” content.
Are we as a culture lazy? Is this all we want to see — our favorite stories and characters painted with the same brush but in slightly different tones?
The overarching appeal behind all of this, as I see it, is nostalgia. Why it’s working so powerfully is up for debate. Here are my thoughts, purely as an observer, who will never subject myself to a singing Timothee Chalamet-Wonka.
The first reason this is happening is — surprise! — money. Engaging in nostalgia has proven benefits, comparable to a vitamin or antidote in times of uncertainty, according to The Guardian. It’s comfortable to be reminded of good times, even if it does direct you away from the present. You could argue that fashion is cyclical for this reason, or that products that harken back to childhood symbols and characters sell so well.
In understanding the selling power of nostalgia, then, of course filmmakers and movie studios would want to capitalize on this good feeling. Perhaps the most obvious recent example of nostalgia-bait in film was the Barbie movie. I, like the people in my life who also saw the film, was a fan because of the substance. As I’ve written before, the film made revisiting girlhood accessible and showed the value of telling stories about women’s experiences.
That being said, of course the film also relied heavily on nostalgia. And that, to the excitement of a movie studio, is marketable.
Barbie is a child’s toy! Dump out that deep message about the pressures of femininity, and you have a template that makes billions of dollars in revenue. Clearly, audiences will pay to relive aspects of childhood.
So what came after “Barbie”? There were talks soon after of a Polly Pocket movie. A Minecraft movie is now in the works. And fans were quick to point out that the Barbie movie itself hinted at a subsequent Bratz movie.
This wave of movies all revolving around themes of childhood play isn’t the first. Before “Barbie” came the Sonic movies and the Mario movie, and just about any classic Disney movie you can name has been reproduced into a live-action film that no one asked for.
Whether it’s what we asked for or not, nostalgia is what is making movies at the moment. It’s not necessarily wrong, and not all movies are copied and pasted from original content crafted decades or even just a few years prior. It is interesting, though.
Has COVID-19 shaped what we look for in entertainment now? What about political unrest? What is it about the current moment that makes film studios assume that movies rooted in nostalgia will be profitable? In reaching for nostalgia, what are we escaping from?
There’s an idea in media studies that nothing in a film is accidental; the camera angle, the lighting, the way a line is said and the way the film is edited are a conscious choices made with deliberate purpose to tell a message.
I think that to an extent the film industry is the same. There’s no perfect model for how many tickets a movie will sell or what its reviews will ultimately look like. But there is intention behind why so many movies recently are honing in on nostalgia. It’s a powerful drug that people are willing to pay for.
Whether this is a phase in filmmaking — a somewhat lazy creative slump, as I see it — is yet to be seen. All I’m hoping for is a future that doesn’t try to rewrite or, I suppose recast, the past.