Unoriginality In Hollywood | The same story you've read 8 times before

Saw the midnight premier of The Hunger Games last night. Full review will go up tomorrow. As much as I'd like to be on top of all the juicy, gory details, go see it for yourselves first. I consider this the 24 hour Spoiler Grace Period. I'll put up a warning for a week, but after that it's you're own damned fault.

In the mean time, here's a complete list of the movies currently showing in my local theater:

 Based on a famous, out-of-copyright novel series, with several previous movie incarnations.

 Based on a best-selling novel by an author who has had multiple previous works filmed.

 Completely unoriginal concept, a tired trope in vaguely new packaging. Quality of said packaging remains to be seen, though reviews seem to be fairly disappointing  overall.

 Again, a popular book series turned into a movie. The book itself being a–granted, very well executed and richly backstoried–rehashing of the Battle Royale "kids forced to fight to the death" trope, itself a variation on the Thunderdome scenario, or generic gladiatorial combat.

 "Eddie Murphy has a physical quirk which sets him apart from other people, but being forced to deal with this makes him learn about himself and grow as a person." That's a trope in and of itself.

 Actually an original concept. Sad that it's effectively "reality" T.V., meaning mostly staged to resemble true events, but it's still an original idea that was intended start-to-finish as such.

 Remake of a T.V. drama. Now a craptacular twenty-something stoner comedy.

 Sequel to a remake of a movie of a myth.

Bastardization of a beloved children's book.

To twist the knife a bit, previews of upcoming movies shown prior to Hunger Games included:

The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo DVD - Remake of a Swedish movie of a book.

G.I. Joe 2 - Sequel to a remake of a cartoon/toy commercial with multiple spin-off franchises

Prometheus - Amazing looking new sci-fi film by Ridley Scott, unfortunately still a loose prequel to Alien.

Snow White and the Huntsman - Retelling of a classic fable concurrent with another that looks infinitely worse.

Teaser for Twilight: Breaking Dawn, Pt. 2 - End of an adapted novel series.

Hollywood doesn't have writers so much anymore, as they have editors.