This post was updated May 11 at 9:41 p.m.

Reboots aren’t reviving anything except viewers’ mixed reactions to nostalgia.

The COVID-19 pandemic saw Zoom reunions for the casts of several films and now-canceled series, sparking the idea for the crew to get back together. Revamping preexisting intellectual property (IP) is nothing new in the industry, but it seems that lately, almost everything is a reboot because executives know they can count on loyal fanbases. While studios are securing their future by banking on previously successful content, they are simultaneously sacrificing original content and oversaturating the market with reboots – both of which leave audiences dissatisfied with what to look forward to watching today.

For instance, Lionsgate recently announced that a series for “The Twilight Saga” is currently in development. The commercial acclaim of Stephenie Meyer’s beloved adapted novels is likely the sole reason the studio greenlit the project since no one has ever asked for this. But studio executives and producers know fans will make the series just as successful as they did the films.

[Related: Second Take: Disney loses its magic with overly nostalgic sequels and remakes]

This is just one example of a trend across the media landscape where films are being rebooted into TV shows and vice versa. Even though the creative teams behind these projects are supposedly making something new out of something old by presenting it in a different medium, the magic is already gone. Thus, reboots are nothing but cash grabs, no matter what form they come in.

Furthermore, the “Scream” franchise is the epitome of milking money out of a loyal fanbase. The original 1996 slasher was novel in its meta-commentary on the formula of horror flicks, which naturally spawned multiple sequels to further its self-reflexive narrative. However, this grew tiring even for critics, who claimed that this was essentially an excuse to use the same tired motifs over and over again.

Despite the franchise’s flaws, “Scream” has become a cult classic, which is probably why the more contemporary “Scream 4” was released 11 years after the third. Yet, it was the least-grossing film in the entire franchise. So, to generate renewed interest, it was rebooted as an MTV series of the same name in 2015. And when that didn’t build traction among audiences, Matt Bettinelli-Olpin and Tyler Gillett came out with “Scream” and “Scream VI” in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

These rebooted sequels proved successful at reviving the seemingly dead franchise. While die-hard fans can appreciate the nods to the previous films and the running theme of their self-aware narrative, the “requels” have received the same criticism as their predecessors, and frankly, they just do not live up to the creations of the late Wes Craven. This begs the question: How willing are producers to ruin the memory of a filmmaker’s work just because it is the most convenient to cash in?

This is not to say that there are no good reboots. For example, the Netflix series “Cobra Kai” inventively reframed the premise of bullying in “The Karate Kid” by having antagonist-turned-antihero Johnny (William Zabka) become a sensei to teach a kid to defend himself with the same moves he once used to harass the film’s protagonist. With that, the show wonderfully balances the film’s nostalgia and the need to update with the times to deliver entertaining yet relatable, multigenerational life lessons – creating new characters and furthering the development of the original ones for viewers to love alike.

However, “Cobra Kai” is a bright, shiny needle in an overwhelmingly mediocre haystack of reboots that Hollywood keeps churning out like a conveyor belt in a factory. Audiences can forgive franchises like those of superheroes because of their general appeal, thus perpetuating their legacy within the industry, or if a sequel was already planned because a visionary initially sought to create an anthology.

[Related: Film review: ‘Scream VI’ plays it safe with familiar settings, scare tactics]

But by only producing reboots, the film and television market is now oversaturated with such, and audiences, including the most devoted fans of a franchise, are dying for original content. They simply just want to see something new that they can’t compare to anything else.

Obviously, not every screenplay a studio sees is a contender. But if these businesses allocated what arguably is more than enough of their resources and dedicated some time and attention to finding that needle in the haystack, they wouldn’t have to rely on preexisting IPs and their fans. They could have the best of both worlds in which they produce an indisputably entertaining piece of media, while still making a lot of money.

So, if studios can’t come up with their own original thoughts, they should stop looking to the past and maybe pick up a new script every once in a while because original content is the only way for the future of filmmaking to truly move forward.