Rebooting Hollywood Part 2: Death to the Franchise

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I have no idea how to ‘fix’ Hollywood, I’m not even sure if there really is anything that needs to be fixed. Blockbuster movies make more money than ever. Even the Hollywood flops still turn a profit during the theatrical run with international sales. For now, I’m just going talk about how film franchises, sequels, split final chapters, and the never ending franchise is hurting the public image of Hollywood.

The franchise film is all about playing it safe. The first film made X amount so the sequel is bound to make at least Y amount but could make Z amount! You have a built in audience who have expectations for you to meet. It’s still not an easy task, but even if your audience hates it, you still have good odds to have a big opening weekend just because people are hooked from the first film.

TV has a similar problem when they let a series go on for too long. American Horror Story on FX has decided to throw the book out the window when it comes to building a TV series. It’s being called an anthology series. Each season is a mini-series, appearing to be completely independent of one another. The consistent elements being thematics and cast. It’s not a perfect solution, but I love the ingenuity and I do recommend checking out the first season at least and I’m pretty excited for the third to come out. It’s comparable to cinema in regards to the fact that you don’t come back for the linear story, but you continue to watch because you like something about it, the director, the writing, the cast. You aren’t being led on by cliffhangers in writing but are able to enjoy a cohesive story and come back for a fresh idea the next season.

Not all franchises are bad, when a film is based on a book series, make a series of films, the story is already intended to carry from one book into the next. But for the love of god, stop breaking books into multiple parts! Harry Potter, 7 books equals 7 movies. The Hobbit, 1 book equals 1 movie. The math should be pretty simple.

And if the movie is a huge success but was never intended to have a sequel, don’t make a sequel! I’m open to telling another story in the same “universe” as a film, same characters at different points, it’s better to have it very loosely connected and focus on different characters rather than prequel-esque traits. And if someone died in your first film, you are going to hear a loud groan from me in the theatre when there is expository dialogue explaining how suddenly they are alive in the sequel! Prequels are equally groan-worthy, they always sound like good ideas but I think their track record proves otherwise.

Hollywood is in a weird place. I personally think 2012 was a great year for films, 2013 isn’t looking so great, and 2015 looks to have a new addition to pretty much every major franchise coming out! I curated a list 27 films due out in 2015 that are sequels to existing films.

That’s not an astronomical amount, we have 35 slated for 2013! We will probably see 35 easily in 2015 also. It’s the norm, it’s where the money is at. it’s not evil in itself, when done right, a franchise can speak for a generation of movie-goers.

The franchise has really become the saving grace of Hollywood lately in large part because they consistently do well internationally. The international audience becomes enamored even when the US audience is screaming dud. As a result, the industry is being pulled in all directions, virtually every major release will earn it’s money back during the theatrical run, and it’s only being considered a dud if it fails to turn a profit in its opening weekend, at least from a critics standpoint, hard to say if they industry is even bothered by this trend.

I assume they are looking for solutions to their current state when it comes to their public image in the US, but financially, this isn’t hurting them.

We all groan when we hear there is a sequel to an original film, and really that’s what it boils down to. Plenty of films are born to be franchises, but we need to realize when there was something just wonderfully perfect about an original film and let it be.

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Jared Abrams is a cinematographer based in Hollywood, California. After many years as a professional camera assistant he switched over to still photography. About two years ago a new Canon camera changed the way the world sees both motion and still photography. He just happened to be in the right place at the right time.