where creative exists

We talked about people creating based on preexisting items instead of creating a brand new object in lass week on Jeff's class.

I could not stop think something about Cost-Benefit analysis. Let’s think about movie industry for a while and think which good movie has no followed serial II, III or even VI?

A professor for my another class gave us some numbers when she talked about Cost-Benefit Analysis:
The Lord of the Rings:
The fellowship of the ring Budget is $109M the profit is $860.7M
The Two Towers Budget is $94 the profit is $920.5
The Return of the king Budget is $94 the profit is $1129.2

Why the 3rd could spend less money and get more profit then the first one? I guess it is because the accumulated reputation from the first and second.

Couldn’t the directors come up some new characters and scenarios to make totally new ones instead of serial II, III? The answer is yes,they could. But why they need to create a totally new one??? If the new one could not guarantee a success?

If the numerical representation, modularity and automation makes the “creative process” easier， more efficient and productive, why we are always looking for totally authentic creative?

On the other hand, even though it is not authentic creative, I believe that creative exists somewhere when you make a choice, a judgment. How could things could re-used in a totally different order. Creative was invented by a more smooth way and evolved over time and by different people consciously or unconsciously. When we look back thirty years, we could find the huge difference between what we have now and at that time, even though we don’t think there is something new compared with things we used yesterday.