Hollywood thrives off franchises in today's world. Reboots and sequels to superhero films and iconic 80's/90's heroes are all the rage these days.Back in the old days, when something became unpopular or financially unsuccessful, that franchise would simply shrivel up and die. Today, things are somewhat different.
If the latest sequel to a film bombs, then the business mentality is to either reinvent or begin the entire story from scratch.
When Batman & Robin failed, we received Christopher Nolan's Batman Begins reboot; when Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines was critically slammed, we had the prequel/sequel/reboot hybrid that was Terminator Salvation; when Alien Resurrection killed off the Alien anthology for the second time round, we had Alien Versus Predator; when Alien Versus Predator Requiem turned out to be a nightmarish failure, Prometheus made its way onto the silver screen; once Superman Returns became an internationally boycotted feature, Warner Bros started dreaming up Man of Steel; and when Sam Raimi's Spider-man 3 went off the narrative rails, Paramount studios said hello to Marc Webb's The Amazing Spider-man.
You get the picture. Hollywood lives off of these names. This is what works for them these days and it appears to be a business model which isn't going away anytime soon
Last Thursday afternoon's news about Disney's plans to release a Star Wars film every single year from 2015 onward establishes this. Despite many claiming that Star Wars died back in 1999 with The Phantom Menace, Disney have differing ideas; essentially turning the Star Wars name into a continuous and never ending production line of feature films. If Disney stick to their word, then there will constantly be a Star Wars movie in production from next year onward; without any gaps between their releases.
But if we ignore the business model of franchise movie making for a moment - focusing instead on personal admiration for a series - how long can a franchise really survive in terms of quality?
From my own personal taste, I have come to an average conclusion of two feature films before an idea begins growing stale. It seems that it is not uncommon for the first sequel of a film to be of good quality; sometimes even out performing its predecessor.
Some of my favorite films of the past 30 years are first time sequels; examples being Terminator 2: Judgement Day, Aliens, Spider-man 2, and The Dark Knight. These features have been fantastic movie-going experiences; expanding the themes, characters and universes of their respected franchises in a number of fascinating and creative ways (a claim which I intend to try and justify when I move on to review them in future posts). Some (but not necessarily all) of the films mentioned above have also gone on to make way to second sequels which have done nothing more than make a mockery of their predecessors.
Alien3, Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines and Spider-man 3 all went on to become absolute disasters . After excellent sequels, these features came along and soiled all over the excellence of their predecessors. The only film with the number 3 in its title which I actually found to be superior than its proceeding film is Toy Story 3 (again, I shall justify in a future post).
So what about reboots? Are they as damaging to film sagas as frequently as sequels containing the number 3 in them?
Well, from what I've seen so far, not as much.
Although The Amazing Spider-man was more or less a lazy revise of Sam Raimi's first 2002 film, I still found it to be a highly entertaining romp which helped me to forget about Toby Maguire's previous (and final) outing as Peter Parker. Nolan's revamp of Batman managed to save the franchise from the shambolic abyss that was Batman & Robin; creating one of the greatest origin stories that I've ever had the privilege of viewing. Casino Royal managed to take a series which had out welcomed it's stay somewhat and breathed a new and interesting lease of life into it.
Even though I have not seen a grand deal of reboots, the ones I have seen I've enjoyed and are reboots which appear to have helped resurrect some stories which I was beginning to grow tired of.
But then rebooting may never always be the perfect solution; as there are several series which I simply cannot see being saved by the concept of an emergency reset button. Films such as the Alien, Terminator (although it was sort of loosely rebooted - in terms of its narrative format - with Salvation) or Harry Potter series. Though saying this, I'm sure all of these films will have their reset buttons pushed at some point or another.
The point in which a franchise becomes deceased and dried up is entirely dependent upon the taste of an individual. For me, a saga can seldom survive past two films (three at a push); prequels often do more harm than good (The Phantom Menace being the definitive example); and I'm sure there's only so many times you can restart a series before all that can be explored and exploited in that universe is done so.
But then again, Star Wars Episode VII might be good with J.J. Abrams manning the wheel and as much as I hate Zack Snyder, Man of Steel may very well turn out to be the film which is successful at bringing Clark Kent back to the silver screen.
Only time will tell.
Movies and TV programs will always continue so long as the producers continue to wish to do them regardless of individual interests. I've seen really cheesy corny films/programs produce loads of spin offs/seasons, and yet I've seen one or two really good ones only end up having a really short life span.
ReplyDeleteDespite my favoritism for the series, Buffy the vampire slayer is a prime example of this, it had extremely bad story arch's crap actors most of which u never heard of before, and yet it spawned 9 seasons of buffy plus 5 seasons of angel.
It's funny, I bemoan the hell out of sequel after sequel and then reboots and remakes and the like and I want it all to stop... But then I catch myself, and realize I should stop. Because this crappy little habit has, on occasion, made my life far more enjoyable.
ReplyDeleteWhen it comes to franchises, I tend to use Star Trek as my example - the first one, "the motion picture" was god awful. Star Trek II, however is perversely on my top ten list in between The Lion in Winter and Lawrence of Arabia. Star Trek III? Terrible. Star Trek IV? Fun little popcorn flick. Star Trek V? God awful... But... Star Trek VI? I love that movie. sci-fi awesomeness, shakespeare, Shatner and Christoper Plummer in a war to see who can chew on the most scenery, nice little allegory to the Cold War, hints of themes touched upon in Star Trek II about growing old and what that does to some. Just damn near perfect. Then we get a sort of reboot with the Next Generation cast, and that movie is not good. Then the second TNG movie? First Contact? Awesome. Best remake of "Aliens" you could hope for.... That was followed by two more crappy movies and then... A reboot which was fantastic. As you wrote another blog about, paying credence to the die hard fans while bringing in a bunch of new ones.
If that franchise stopped at 3, I would never have gotten VI. The two psuedo reboots, also proved worthwhile. In that franchise, you have to wade through some crap but you keep coming across gold. It stops me from making any kind of rule when it comes to franchises because I know it... Sort of works?
As far as remakes - there's a movie in my top 5 that was a remake of a remake. Not even kidding. The Maltese Falcon, 1941. By the time John Huston did that adaptation of the almost as awesome Dashiell Hammett novel with Humphrey Bogart, that book had been adapted to film twice. Once in 1931 under the same title, and once in 1936, just five years later under the god awful name of "Satan Met a Lady". Both of those movies are terrible. But the 2nd remake? The stuff that dreams are made of.
That fact makes me realize the idea of Hollywood remaking the same crap is nothing new, they've been doing it since the beginning. The first Frankenstein and Dracula adaptations were silent films. How many have been made since? And also, that sometimes... Just sometimes... Remakes can be surpass the original and become classics. I'll take a million crappy remakes if it gets me the Maltese Falcon.