When director Christopher Landon introduced his new thriller, “Drop,” before its premiere at the Chinese Theater on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame, he had a warning for the packed auditorium.
“It’s really hard out there for an original movie,” he said, urging everyone who liked the Universal Pictures release to “scream it from the rooftops” and on social media.
“Drop” opened this weekend to an estimated $7.5 million domestically, one of two new movies based on fresh ideas that fizzled at the box office. The other was Disney’s “The Amateur,” a spy thriller adapted from a little-known 1981 book, which opened to an estimated $15 million.
After years of gripes from average moviegoers and Hollywood insiders alike about the seemingly nonstop barrage of sequels, spin-offs, and adaptations of comic books and toys, the film industry placed more bets on original ideas.
The results have been ugly.
