We’ve all heard it – something weird is making a comeback. But now, living in a world with more new media every day than we’ve ever had before, we can’t seem to escape it. My question is why?

I’m particularly talking about movies, the juggernauts, the ones that are guaranteed to make an obscene amount of money at the box office. Each and every one piggybacking that economic success of a legacy. Some of them are forgivable – like Star Wars, a battler of a movie turned into a cult classic with budgets and stories that keep evolving. But some break my heart, to the point that I can’t even bring myself to watch.

I grew up in a golden age of Disney princess movies, the first movie that I saw in a cinema was Beauty and the Beast. And our parent gleefully shared their experiences of movies such as The Jungle Book, Lady and the Tramp and Mary Poppins. Such a timeless classic that I cannot bring myself to watch the new one. As talented as Emily Blunt is, she is not Julie Andrews. It is hardly her fault that Julie Andrews was so iconic in the original that certain audiences will have trouble seeing past that. My bigger hurdle is my understanding of the plot, that Michael’s children need saving from the same fate he faced as a child. Michael has forgotten. What does this plot say about Mary Poppins herself? It says that the struggles of adult life are going to get anyone down, and even Mary Poppins cannot have any lasting effect. That’s not what I want to believe about Mary Poppins.

Imagine my surprise when I watched the much-anticipated first clip release for the new Lion King. It was the Circle of Life, but it was a Circle of Life that I knew well. Shot for shot it was exactly the same as the scene that had so sparked my interest back when I was five years old. What is the point? To make money?

Of course studios aim to make money, they are businesses. The bigger problem is the audience’s complicity. Instead of taking a punt with their money and time audiences seek the known, certainty. So that’s where the studios put their money. There are still amazing creative, ground-breaking and beautiful movies being made – but they are drowned out by the big budgets. It’s hard to hear.

What’s the solution? I don’t really know. I will keep trying to put my money where my mouth is and support original and interesting work. But how do we live in a world that appreciates originality? That’s a bigger question.