Have you ever wondered why movie sequels or remakes and cover songs are never as good as the originals? And why do so many athletes and singers suffer from the “sophomore jinx”?
I was watching some unknown singer do a cover version of Elton John’s Your Song on SNL, and the question “Why?” came to mind. Why would anybody ever bother to do a cover version of a song or produce a movie remake or sequel? They are almost never as good as the originals. Then I realized that the reason has to do with a statistical phenomenon called regression to the mean.
Regression to the mean refers to the statistical phenomenon that, whenever you obtain an extreme outcome far from the mean, the next trial will almost certainly result in a less extreme outcome closer to the mean. So, for example, if you get 8 heads out of 10 flips of a fair coin, then, in the next 10 flips, you are likely to get 4, 5, or 6, rather than 10, 9, or even 8 again. An outcome immediately following an extreme outcome far from the mean moves closer to (or regresses to) the mean.
Whether a given song or movie becomes a huge hit also contains a fixed component (its inherent and true quality) and a random component (all the unpredictable and unknowable factors that go into making it a success or failure in entertainment). The problem with movie sequels and cover songs is that they only make them when the original was extremely successful. Nobody produces a remake of a movie that bombed or a cover of a song that flopped. They only remake “classics” that did extremely well critically or financially.
The law of regression to the mean suggests that Ishtar II and Waterworld II will likely do much better than the originals. But Hollywood doesn’t gamble on previous failures. I wish Hollywood would learn about regression to the mean so that it would stop producing movie sequels and cover songs which are guaranteed to disappoint.