Imagine the year is 2049 and Amazon MGM Studios just announced they are bringing the powerhouse triad, Zendaya, Josh O’Connor and Mike Faist, back to the big screen for a revival of the 2024 film “Challengers” for its 25th anniversary.

Reception is varied. Some audiences are simply excited to see what is in store for the future of these characters, some groan at the thought of bringing back a piece of media that they believe was perfect as is and many will tune in to any Zendaya performances.

Maybe you recognize similar methods of thinking in relation to today’s entertainment landscape. Recall this year’s “Freakier Friday” and “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” bringing back nostalgic late 90s and early aughts characters and storylines. Recent reboots, sequels and legacy sequels or “requels” films that return original characters but introduce new storylines, have caused stirs of vastly varied reactions among audiences.

Many audiences project their dismay with Hollywood’s trend of revivals, reboots and re-imaginings, articulating common grievances like, “this seems like the mantra for the entertainment industry as of late.” But, University of Wisconsin-Madison communication arts professor and expert on contemporary television and audiences Jonathan Gray said Hollywood has actually been producing this type of media for a long time — despite reboot cinema being a focus of media discourse in recent years.

Take the 2018 romance musical starring Bradley Cooper and Lady Gaga, for instance. “A Star is Born” — which created supernovas on big screens across the globe — has been remade four times since 1937.

Though, a subsection of the reboot style that is a bit newer in Hollywood production Gray said is the “nostalgia reboot.”

“I think Hollywood always went and looked back at things that were once popular and said ‘let’s see if they’ll be popular again,’ but now there’s a hope that they’ll pick up a new generation, and that the old generation will find it fun to go back there,” Gray said.

Gray referenced “Freakier Friday” as an example of how Hollywood uses reboots capture new audiences — in this case, families.

It is clear through the ever-expanding vocabulary of cinema — reboot, sequel, requel, prequel, revival — that Hollywood prioritizes efforts to resuscitate old characters, storylines and universes, all in the name of maintaining old audiences and reaching new ones.

“We all wish that Hollywood would make less of other people’s franchises, and yet, we probably all have characters we adore and would want to see more,” Gray said.

But how many new audiences can be reached through this playbook when there are always viewers out there craving original and authentic media?

English and film student at the UW-Milwaukee Ian Dugenske said appealing to audiences’ nostalgia doesn’t always work.

Dugenske referenced Warner Bros greenlighting of a sequel to the 1985 family adventure film “The Goonies,” with Steven Spielberg and Chris Columbus returning as showrunners.

“‘The Goonies’ is a movie I grew up with and I hold onto quite fondly, and to hear it’s getting a sequel, to me, it’s so weird,” Dugenske said. “It feels so cash-grabby. If it’s a good movie, just leave it alone.”

As a college student, there is a tendency to romanticize childhood when times were simpler, Dugenske said. Despite the occasional yearn for comfort, college is also a time for change and discovering new interests.

Dugenske shared he thinks this urge for discovery of authentic and original ideas is spreading through audiences, making them increasingly more critical of Hollywood’s revivals and reboots framework.

“I think the wave is starting to die,” Dugenske said. “I think people are getting a little sick of all the reboots and whatnot. I do think people are starting to want something new, and they are becoming critical over things that are…all about the charm and not the actual storyline.”

With the rise in popularity of smaller, independent studios like A24 and its box office successes like the best picture winner “Everything Everywhere All at Once” (2022), audiences may be projecting their desires for original storytelling to return to theaters.

Dugenske said studios like A24 use branding that relies on originality and aesthetic, something that millennials and Gen Z gravitate towards.

“They want these original stories that really push the levels of comfort for what is a standard story,” Dugenske said. “But at the same time, a lot of big franchises are guaranteed success; the big franchise is guaranteed comfort. You know what you’re getting out of it.”

Dugenske has hopes for a future where more original films appear in theaters, but acknowledges the reality of competing with franchises that have established audiences.

Gray said that he does not see Hollywood studios stopping anytime soon from trying to tap into pre-established fanbases in the form of reboots and revivals. Still, they may be too focused on giving everybody what they want to notice that the ever-changing media environment may call for a different mode of thinking.

“There will always be things that break through and are super successful, and I worry that Hollywood feels like that’s what they have to be pursuing,” Gray said. “Whereas what we need is a generation of studio ownership that perhaps is a little more humble, that realizes that they could still have great success — and great success might mean $50 million, not $600 million.”

Hollywood studios appears to drop a glass slipper into different fanbases every time they’re due for a box office smash, and pray that a few of them fit.

Nostalgia may be Hollywood’s oldest trick, but the growing conversation around originality suggests it may be time for studios to rethink how younger audiences respond to revival cinema.

“I do tend to want to go see a movie that’s original,” Dugenske said. “A24, NEON … they have a decent reputation behind them now. So when you see the logo, you think ‘This is going to be an original story that’s probably going to make me think and make this $11 movie theater ticket worth it.’”