Movies often provide an escape from reality, offering an opportunity to cast aside everyday stress through creative and fresh entertainment. You pay $10 to sit in the plush, red velvet theatre seat, munch on popcorn, melt Junior Mints in your mouth and slurp on a cherry Slushy before the classic Hollywood magic begins. But what do you get instead? A remake.

The last few months have been littered with movies attempting to re-create the originals such as “Bewitched,” “The Bad News Bears,” “The Longest Yard,” and “War of the Worlds.” The movie industry has put forth more than 15 remakes this year alone and the list of duplicates doesn’t stop at old television shows and classic movies. There has also been a surge of comic book adaptations such as “Fantastic Four,” “Batman Returns” and even “Superman Returns,” scheduled for 2006.

This overwhelming amount of repackaged material begs the question: Is originality gone in Hollywood? Cynical critics and film fanatics chalk it up to pure laziness, since it’s less of a risk to be involved with making sequels, remakes and adaptations. Others believe producers are incapable of conceiving original ideas, leading them to spawn imitations that fit into a new generation just by adding special effects and popular young stars. According to Stephen Ujlaki, chair of the cinema department at SF State, studios look for safe bets. They hope lightning will strike twice and they will come up with a hit.

“With the cost of marketing sky-high, studios look for well-known titles that are household names,” Ujlaki says. “They [producers] think there will be a built-in audience for something people are familiar with.”

These uninventive renditions have no doubt affected box office sales, which are down nearly 10 percent from last summer, according to box-office tracker Exhibitor Relations. The Associated Press reports movie theaters haven't seen summer attendance numbers this bad since 1997.

And the dizzying trend doesn’t seem to be ending just yet. Also scheduled for a 2006 release is “The Pink Panther,” starring Steve Martin, Kris Kline and Beyonce Knowles. And in the works is a reproduction of “I Dream of Jeannie,” with the lead role going to Jessica Alba. Lastly, for all the “Hawaii Five-O” fans out there … look out. Warner Brothers just acquired the rights for perhaps another rehashing of 1970s television. With “Charlie’s Angels,” “Dukes of Hazzard” and “Starsky & Hutch” already having hit the big screen, do we really want to keep going back in time?

It's too bad Hollywood can’t just leave well enough alone and let networks like TV Land and Nick-at-Nite worry about keeping old shows thriving.