Ricky Church on whether movie studios are ruining shared universes…
In the years since the Marvel Cinematic Universe began and its massive success at the box office has come a tidal wave of news that studios seek to emulate Marvel’s idea of a shared universe for their franchises. For some studios, namely Warner Bros. with their DC Comics properties, that is to be expected, but other studios seem to be going a little too far with the shared universe concept. With so many studios set to milk this new concept for all its worth, will it instead have a negative effect and lead to the downfall of shared cinematic universes?
For companies like Marvel or WB, it makes sense for them to work on a large cinematic universe where their stable of characters interacts with one another on a near constant basis. After all, both comic publishers have had their characters live in the same world since the 1960s on the page and in animation. It was a mere eventuality Marvel and DC would crossover their characters in live action and attempts to do just that were made as early as the 1990s. Not only that, but fans want to see Batman and Superman working together or Spider-Man finally alongside the Avengers so a shared universe between all these superheroes is not only practical, but is a good financial strategy.
However, there are much more upcoming shared universes that give one reason to pause. The recent announcement that Universal plans to start a cinematic universe based off of Robert Ludlum’s books, starting with an adaptation of The Janson Directive starring Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnston, is only the latest news regarding a studio establishing a shared universe. This franchise would act as a springboard for other Ludlum adaptations such as Covert One and The Sigma Protocol and will potentially crossover with the Jason Bourne series, arguably Robert Ludlum’s most famous set of novels. Though the thought of seeing Matt Damon and Dwayne Johnson in an action movie together is admittedly appealing, there is a certain limitation to what the studio can do, a subject I will go into more detail on later.
Consider the fact that, apart from the Bourne novels, all of Robert Ludlum’s books are stand-alone. There’s no continuity to them, nor do characters from other series pop in and out of other books unlike, say, a Tom Clancy or early John le Carre novel. Rather than allowing these individual movies to flourish on their own, Universal seems intent on tying them to the resurgent Bourne franchise in order to maximize publicity and profits. Dwayne Johnson is even an established action star who is more than capable of selling his own movie without the added benefit of a shared universe. Furthermore, the Janson series was published after Ludlum’s death with the first novel based off a manuscript and all others written by a different author under the Ludlum brand, much like how Bourne continues to be written by Erik Van Lustbader.
Interestingly, a Ludlum universe isn’t the only one Universal is content to develop. The upcoming The Mummy remake, starring Tom Cruise, is set to be the first in an interconnected series of many of Universal’s classic horror monsters such as Dracula and Frankenstein, with Russell Crowe even being cast as Dr. Henry Jekyll to further establish a monster universe. WB also has a second universe in the making between Godzilla and King Kong that will be developed over the course of Kong: Skull Island and Godzilla 2 before finally culminating in 2020’s Godzilla vs. Kong.
There’s even talk of the Transformers film franchise getting the shared universe treatment. Last year Paramount and Hasbro convened a “writer’s room” for the franchise where they listened to pitches from various screenwriters and filmmakers and plotted out the next several years of films. Transformers: The Last Knight will be released next year, followed by a spin-off film featuring the Autobot Bumblebee and a possible animated prequel set on Cybertron. I think its fair to say that, while the Transformers is indeed populated by dozens of characters and have proven to be box office hits despite negative critical reception, the films have not done nearly enough to justify an expansion, especially as each new entry retcons the continuity of the previous film in some way.
There’s been so much talk of ‘superhero fatigue’ lately and how the bubble will pop when mainstream audiences no longer want to see superhero movies, but maybe we should be concerned with the concept of multi-film universes. It may work for companies like Marvel and DC, but applying the concept to Jason Bourne or Transformers seems unnecessary. At least there’s some basis with the monsters and Godzilla/King Kong since the older movies allowed a crossover once in a while, but it was not treated as a huge thing or built up over the course of several movies, but rather a one-off tale. Even Star Wars is falling victim as Rogue One and a young Han Solo film are the first steps to a bigger Star Wars film franchise.
This is a problem on two fronts: One, will mainstream audiences really be willing to invest themselves in so many cinematic universes? Following Marvel is hard enough for the casual moviegoer, but adding DC, Godzilla/Kong, Ludlum, the Monsters, Star Wars and Transformers to the mix? That seems way too much, and I say that as a fan of several of those franchises.
The second problem is a lack of originality. As I mentioned earlier, studios tying so many franchises together limits the films and forces filmmakers to follow a studio’s or another filmmaker’s vision. We’ve already seen several filmmakers depart Marvel over years due to ‘creative differences’ as their vision was constricted by the wants and/or needs of Kevin Feige and the rest of Disney/Marvel. DC is not without this problem as WB is restructuring the leadership of their universe after Batman v Superman’s mixed reception. Forcing so many movies into one single narrative not only limits the potential stories that could be told, but the filmmakers as well. At least Rogue One is a story setting up A New Hope with a whole different cast and showing unseen events in the Star Wars canon.
The shared universe concept is a great one that does offer a lot of potential for film, there is no denying that, but at this point the concept is being exploited for all its worth by unnecessary franchises (such as MiB 23, the Men in Black/Jump Street crossover). It’s highly possible audiences will get fatigued by shared universes long before they do the superhero genre if studios keep applying this to franchise after franchise. Hopefully studios will learn to keep these crossovers/shared universes to a minimum and allow each film to truly stand on its own, but I have a feeling they’re in for a lesson on just how much they can stretch the concept before it finally breaks.
Ricky Church
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Originally published May 22, 2016. Updated November 29, 2022.
