Hollywood is a Franchise Player

Hollywood is a Franchise Player

I’m writing today to tell you something. It’s not a piece of new information. I haven’t found the Holy Grail, and I don’t know the secret to Liam Neeson’s awesomeness. But, it’s a piece of information none the less and since your options are either reading this blog or doing something productive with your day, I’m afraid you’re going to have to listen. So come in closely while I tell you my key titbit. Closer, closer. That’s it. The thing I have to tell you is: Hollywood loves Franchises. 

There we have it. I imagine your mind is well and truly blown now isn’t it? OK, I admit it. There’s no surprise that Hollywood loves franchises. Why wouldn’t they? Franchises are highly profitable for the movie industry; they provide production companies the opportunity to produce films that will almost guarantee them an existing audience. No longer will they have to generate new audiences with thrilling characters. They just have to go into their back catalogue of ‘greatest hits’, pull out a movie that worked and either remake it or create a sequel, thus creating a franchise. 

This surely couldn’t work could it? We are an intelligent race that would realise that we’re being fobbed off aren’t we? If Hollywood did this, we’d just stop watching wouldn’t we? Well I’m sorry to be the one to tell you this, but sadly we wouldn’t because they do it and we still tune in. Eight of the Ten top worldwide grosses this year belonged to films that were part of a franchise. And one of the two that didn’t was Thor, which still belongs to a comic franchise, even if it was the first Movie starring the character. 

OK, so we’ve established that Hollywood does take an invested interest in Franchises and we as a movie going audience watch them. But, are they necessarily a bad thing?

Well kind of. There is no doubt that due to franchises success Hollywood as whole is producing less and less original movies. Yes, there is still quite a bundle of them coming out. But, not a lot of them get the fanfare and promotion that the big franchises get. It’s almost like an original film has to do well in spite of the studio, before it’s taken seriously. 

What Hollywood doesn’t realise is that without original films, they won’t be able to build new franchises. A franchise needs to start somewhere and if these original films aren’t given the time of day then they will struggle when a studio tries to spin of a sequel or a prequel. 

That being said, franchises aren’t always bad. Admittedly, some characters are so interesting that they deserve more than one story. Or stories are so griping that they deserve more than one film. That’s fine. I’m for franchises if it serves a purpose and tells a compelling story and in the most basic way, entertains me. 

However, I’m not for a franchise if it’s the studio spinning out another Pirates of the Caribbean, just to get people in their drones turning up to stare at Johnny Depp phoning it in while wearing eye liner. But, hey, if we didn’t see them, they wouldn’t make them. And if they didn’t make them, we wouldn’t see them. Talk about your vicious circles.

Until next time, enjoy the show. 

All feedback is good feedback. Feel free to email me at: cinemascreenandspandex@gmail.com

Or follow me on Twitter: @glamgrunge. 

Daniel Morris