Anghus Houvouras on the ‘Franchise Wars’ and the end of anticipation….
The Hollywood landscape has changed so much in the 21st century. Hollywood has always been keen to build a franchise. They are the safe bets in an industry of constantly changing trends and rapidly evolving consumer taste. The movie industry has reliant on franchises for as long as it’s existed. There’s a reason many of the first movies were based on books or well-known characters like Sherlock Holmes. Franchises are nothing new, however we are now entering a unprecedented era where franchised content is becoming more and more frequent.
As more news broke about Disney’s intention to roll out a slate of Obi-Wan ‘standalone’ films, the internet continued to buzz with excitement about a world where we get a Star Wars movie every 12 months.
Every… twelve… months.
It’s easy to understand the appeal to fans who are chomping at the bit to take another tour of a galaxy far, far away. Those who love Star Wars (and Marvel, DC, etc) work under the assumption that more = better. They work under that assumption because they haven’t had to exist in a world where their tastes are indulged with greater and greater frequency.
Hollywood is churning out so much franchised product, and let’s face it, these are not exceptional works of art containing a whole lot of substance. These are sugary confections engineered to get people excited. To stoke the dormant coals inside middle-aged fanboys desperate to rekindle that feeling they discovered when first discovering Star Wars or comic books or Transformers. Movies created to get children to buy action figures and video games. Increasing the output of these movies creates an empty cinematic diet that could leave audiences sugar shocked.
This is uncharted territory because we’ve never existed in a landscape where fans are given a new installment every single year. Marvel has yet to find the apex of their cinematic success proving that audiences have an appetite for multiple franchise movies each year, but once other franchises begin replicating that success we’re going to be drifting through unfamiliar waters.
Every single year you’ll be gifted with a Star Wars film. Three Marvel films. Two DC movies. Some of those years you’ll get a Transformers, and a Spider-Man, and an X-Men movie (and now possible a TV show). We already have Batman themed TV shows. Arrow. Flash. Constantine. Supergirl is coming.
We’re getting too much too soon, and what really suffers is the concept of anticipation. That feeling you get seeing the trailer or first teaser for the movie you’ve been eagerly awaiting since it was first announced. That is the cost of instant gratification. When all your geek desires are being fulfilled at a breakneck pace, will any of it feel special anymore. If A New Hope, The Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi were released in 1977, 1978, and 1979 would Star Wars have become the most legendary pop culture film series of all time? Or was it the delay between installments that built anticipation and allowed it to be a phenomenon over a span of seven years?
In comparison, look at The Hobbit. The annual billion dollar earner that makes a ton of money but is met with a collective shrug from film fans. Did no one consider the possibility that releasing three three hour movies back to back in three years was a mistake? Certainly Warner Bros. didn’t as they count the profits. We’ve seen the atrophy before. Two Matrix sequels hurt the franchise irreparably. Two Pirates of the Caribbean sequels in back to back years made money but eroded interest in subsequent installments.
At some point we’re going to hit the saturation point. This orgy of excess will eventually yield smaller returns as more franchises vie for a piece of the lucrative pie. Once you remove anticipation from the equation, what does that mean for this ‘more is better’ paradigm the studios are currently peddling?
Anghus Houvouras is a North Carolina based writer and filmmaker. His latest work, the novel My Career Suicide Note, is available from Amazon. Follow him on Twitter.
Originally published October 7, 2014. Updated April 13, 2018.
