Franchise Fatigue is a Real Thing
The Film Industry Today
Can you guess how many films out of the top 10 highest grossing movies in 2017 were franchises?
All.
I repeat, ALL 10 of the highest grossing movies were based on pre-existing intellectual property such as sequels, prequels, or remakes. In fact, only 3 out of the top 20 were new content written directly for screen (Coco, Boss Baby, Dunkirk). It’s clear that Hollywood has a franchise obsession but it wasn’t always like this.
How did it all start?
The first sequel was created over a century ago (The Fall of a Nation 1916) and they were often B-level productions that were shown as a double feature, according to culture critic and filmmaker Dr. Stuart Henderson. The production of franchises didn’t really become popular until the 70s when films such as The Godfather II (1974) won Best Picture at the 47th Academy Awards, and the Star Wars Trilogy (1977–1983) broke box office records. Since then, the amount of sequels produced have been increasing exponentially and has doubled in the last 10 years. This summer alone will have 18 wide releases including Avengers: Infinity Wars (April), Deadpool 2 (May), Solo: A Star Wars Story (May), and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom (June).
I’m sure you are thinking the same thing as me: Another Star Wars movie? Didn’t Star Wars: The Last Jedi just come out in December — 5 months before Solo? Do we really need another Jurassic Park movie? I mean, how many movies can we have about dinosaurs gone wild?
What’s going on?
General consensus and critical responses all agree that each sequel is progressively worse but why is Hollywood still making them at such an alarming rate?
Production costs have been increasing every year. People want better graphics and bigger ‘booms’. For example, the budget for The Fast and Furious franchise crept up with each time, rising from $38 million for the first film to $250 million for The Fate of the Furious. With that in mind, it is much easier for studios to justify making a sequel than to take risks with new ideas. After all, marketing and promotional investments are much greater for original films than for franchises that already have an established brand and fan base.
What’s interesting though, is that while ratings for each sequel, prequel, or reboots keeps decreasing, Hollywood actually keeps reporting crazy box office revenues.
Pirates of the Caribbean’s rating on Rotten Tomato has decreased from 79% for the first film to 30% for Dead Men Tell No Tales (2017), but reported a box office revenue of $795 million compared to $654 million for Curse of the Black Pearl (2003).The same can be seen for the X-Men series. The first movie has a 81% on Rotten Tomato and Apocalypse (2016) has a 48%. Yet, the box office increased from $296 million to $544 million. This is because while domestic box office revenues have been disastrous, it’s overseas counterparts have been picking up the slack — especially in China.
Fate of the Furious was the highest grossing foreign film in China’s market and more than 82% of its global box office revenue came from overseas.
Another example is Transformers: The Last Knight (2017). The film had an record-low domestic opening week of $96 million, but in China, it had an opening week of $123 million — the highest in franchise history.
Hollywood has been appealing towards foreign markets and its working for them. As long as revenue keeps flowing in, the franchise obsession will not end. A reboot of Batman is once again in the talks, a ninth and tenth film for the Fast and Furious has already been scheduled (2020 & 2021), and Harrison Ford has just confirmed his role as Indiana Jones for its fifth installment. I mean, come on, the guy is 75 years old. It is just unrealistic to have his character fight of villains and jump out of moving trucks.
The big question
I’m not saying that sequels, prequels, and remakes are horrible — some are produced excellently. But Hollywood is taking it overboard by milking every franchise possible. What’s worse is, while i’ve been boycotting unwarranted films (hoping that it will somehow make a difference), I haven’t been able to find a lot of original content to watch. Hollywood has put a lot of original content aside to make room for franchises, and it raises the question: What can we do to change that?
Written by Fiona Lee
