The End of Originality

That's the title of this piece in Slate taking on Hollywood and it's lack of 'new'. Ostensibly Edward Jay Epstein is explaining why The Island, produced by Michael Bay didn't produce big numbers last year:

In Hollywood, originality is anything but a virtue. Paramount rejected a recent project that had attached stars, an approved script, and a bankable director by telling the producer, "It's a terrific idea; too bad it has not been made into a movie already or we could have done the remake."

What really failed here was not the directing, acting, or story (which were all acceptable for a summer movie) but the marketing campaign. Whatever other factors might have worked against audience creation—the midsummer release date, the clutter of competitive action films, the misleading title, etc.—The Island had to overcome the competitive disadvantage of not having the built-in awareness that comes from being a sequel, a remake, a video game, a TV series spinoff, or a comic-book adaptation.

Which leads me to ask the following question: Was there no one at the studio with any sense of movie history to know that in fact they were producing a remake of sorts? Surely the clerk at Blockbuster who tipped us off to it when we rented it last week isn't the only one aware of the similarities to this 70's cult classic!