Last week, I examined the origin of movie scripts, showing that Original Screenplays still account for over half of all movies — the same figure it was forty years ago. This prompted a few readers to write in and ask whether there is now a greater prevalence of movie sequels. I’m glad you asked. Are […]

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Today, I’m checking in with the data behind a question I get asked often. Almost every week, a reader or journalist asks me why modern movies aren’t as original as they used to be. So I turned to the data on almost 60,000 movies to find out where their scripts came from. We have to […]

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My work covers a range of topics; some studies look at pressing issues of inequality or untangle the dense web of the film industry’s economic frameworks. This article is not one of them. It’s one of the other ones. By which I mean it’s looking at something pointless, like when I recruited a bunch of […]

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