Entire businesses, business models, infrastructures and architectures are built on the assumption of open-ness. Besides the harm it could to to mandkind, the implementation would not go smoothly to say the least.

Yeah--we already tried that at Abu Graib.

The problem with Hollywood has several layers that contribute to the origin story fatigue issue:

1) Marketing
"Give me something I can sell" is the mantra of the salesman. Hollywood executives are in it for the money. Period. They don't give a flying fuck about the integrity of the story, character development, story arc, catharsis, or any of that artistic stuff that makes a good movie good. They think they can pay the rainmakers to make it rain craft be damned. If their marketing firms give them research data that says "teenaged vampires and werewolves is the sweet spot," they will make those movies. They are looking for projects that fit market analysis. When the average feature film marketing budget is $50M, your movie better be a rainmaker by their voodoo or it's not getting a green light for development much less going into production.

2) Branding
Because "the brand" is ever so important in our increasingly consumer-conscious pop culture, teenaged boys between 13 and 25 are the target audience for a "Brand" like Spiderman or any other comic book coming to the big screen. They will milk that cow dry and grind the meat for sequel burgers.

Here's where your fatigue starts to set in.

3) Lost in Translation
Production companies have become mills that hire production teams to crank out scripts for material we've already seen. (franchise fatigue).
The problem with comic books becoming movies is that the screenplay genre often generates a completely different storytelling form from the original work. Comics and graphic novels have a very unique and staccato language of storytelling that is negated by the transition to live action. The art of the comic or graphic novel is the craft of telling the story without telling you too much. This economy of words and pictures leaves much to the imagination--an abstract economy where the reader experiences the story in a world co-created between his imagination and the artist's craft. When you jump to to big screen, the viewers' intimacy of the details is hijacked by the director and the viewer is no longer an active participant. For this reason, I think adaptations of comic, graphics novels, and even regular novels will always disappoint those familiar with the prior art.

That said, producers, writers, and directors think that they can do better a better job than our imaginations so they keep trying to find formulas, remakes, reboots, and new origin stories to keep us interested when, really, it's already a losing battle for the reasons I posit.

This isn't to say that there are no good comic book movies--but most will agree that there are, in fact, very few in that category.

Audiences keep paying money to see movies they usually dont' like. We're enabling their behavior. Well, the 13-25 yr old males are anyways.

Good point--one that was intended to be the understood other half of the argument I was making. I think the "over" part is probably describing the large percentage of users who fall into the unproductive category I mentioned. Programmers and content providers are a small percentage of diligent users; the unproductive types swarm in, graze until the grass is gone, and then move on.

Like all things pop, social media and the digital lifestyle are subject to the same boom and bust that dooms all fads as ephemeral. BUT Prince probably should have chose his words more carefully or taken his Geritol. ;)

I used to go to this really nice coffee shop years ago. Then, coffee became really popular and suddenly everyone discovered how cool "my" coffee shop was. The hipster-wannabe in-crowd popular types came in and didn't buy coffee. They just hung out to be seen for hours on end. I couldn't find a place to sit with my laptop to get any work done so I stopped going. Between the loss of the real paying customers (regulars who bought by the cup and bought roasted beans) and the complaints by neighboring businesses and residences about parking, they lost their lease and had to shut down. Ruined by success.

I'm sure I had a point...

Prince is right--sort of. A steady diet of instant gratification is bad for you. Make fun of his religion, sexuality, and eccentricities, but he has a body of work to show for his efforts and is successful by any measure. Most of us internet dweebs troll comments and dispense our own pious judgements from our own corners of Loservania but here's a guy with some credibility making a somewhat valid comment about social media--eccentric as it might be.

I think the internet is making us stupid if not just plain lazy. If you think about it, all the time we spend engaged with a glowing screen is kind of ridiculous when there are so many other life-enriching things we could be doing instead.

That doesn't make the internet or gadgets bad--it just spotlights our own weird constant need to escape "real life" by stimulating our brain's addictive center with a steady stream of mostly meaningless information.

Think about that every time you text, check Facebook status changes, click refresh on your e-mail client, reload news sites, or troll slashdot comments, and/or look at your smartphone (again) when you could be paying attention to your friends and family with real face-time.

It's got to be a weird if even Prince thinks it's kind of creepy, right?

Just sayin' (ironic as it is here on /.).

Well, there's goes the cosmic neighborhood...

'I am watching CNN because I expect them to gather the news, not act as a clearinghouse for any bonehead with a computer, a cable modem and a half-baked opinion.'"

--yeah! That's what Slashdot is for! :)

Can't wait to see the new "Marvel Babies" series. Baby Spiderman and Baby Wolverine in wacky preschool misadventures.

Could be worse, though. George Lucas could have bought 'em.

This is the perfect design to get you an instant cavity search.

Mmmm...forbidden donut...

Maybe I watch way too much of Futurama/Simpsons/Family Guy/Sci-Fi channel...