Horror and Legacy
Hollywood is obsessed with legacy films, and horror franchises are arguably this treatment the most.
Horror is a genre well-known in the entertainment medium. It was popularized in literature and transitioned into film and video games. The late 20th century saw the rise of franchises, and horror ran rampant with slashers. The genre has since grown.
With franchises, major Hollywood studios like to milk every penny from popular franchises. This is why, in later installments, certain storylines are either outlandish or seem repetitive. That’s why Friday the 13th’s Jason went to space, or A Nightmare on Elm Street’s Freddy seemingly becomes comedic. We see other horror franchises returning to carry the torch in legacy films.
Legacy Cinema
The current filmmaking trend is to bring back preexisting franchises by bringing about the legacy characters and introducing them to the next generation. Many of these entries serve as soft reboots, such as 2018’s Halloween, which threw out all other installments after 1977 original. Then after a legacy film does well at the box office, the studio behind it turns the movie into a trilogy that continues to story of the new generation alongside the old.