By Peter Rizzo | Staff Writer
Movie franchises have always been present in Hollywood: The Universal Monster films, Star Wars, Harry Potter, the MCU. Story arcs told over multiple films or a shared cinematic universe are hardly new concepts, but there are critical things that separate a good franchise from a bad one. In this article, we’ll be exploring forced or rushed franchises and what happens to them when the audience inevitably loses interest.
Back in 2016, Batman v. Superman: Dawn of Justice (BvS) and Captain America: Civil War both hit theaters. When Civil War got better reviews and made more money, DC fans claimed that Disney and Marvel were paying off critics to say bad things about the BvS. However, while both films featured iconic heroes going toe-to-toe with one another, Civil War had the advantage of eight years of build-up and character development. We, as an audience, could see that the characters weren’t fighting just to fight; they were fighting because they fundamentally disagreed on a major issue in a way that made sense for all characters involved.
BvS was the second movie in the DC Extended Universe (DCEU), and it showed. Audiences wanted to see Batman and Superman fight, but had no interest in these particular incarnations of them. Not only did BvS waste valuable run time setting up practically every future movie they had planned (most of which have since been cancelled), but Batman and Superman hadn’t even met yet in this adaptation before they decided to fight. More care was put into the idea of an event happening rather than setting up said event in a way that made sense.
Today, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is the benchmark for a successful franchise, with twenty-three movies and counting, all of which have been financially and (for the most part) critically successful. Whether you like Marvel or not, they’ve earned their place at the top because they took the time and effort to carefully introduce and set up all of their important players. Compare that to the DCEU introducing every member of the Justice League in one movie, or Tom Cruise’s The Mummy brandishing the logo, “Dark Universe,” to show its place as the first movie in a stillborn franchise. All of these studios want that new hot franchise but they jump the gun because they see what Marvel is doing and want in on the profits. Had DC taken time to establish their characters, which, to their credit, they’ve done for films like Shazam! and Aquaman, they would have the same praise as Marvel and, more importantly, fans would have better films. The intentions make sense, but the execution is off. Yes, audiences want to see the Justice League and Suicide Squad together, but we want to see it done well. The Avengers forming on screen for the first time wasn’t special just because it looked like a panel from the comics; it was special because we got to care about all of the characters on their own, so seeing them interact was incredible.
But how long does that feeling last?
Franchise fatigue is the fear of any long-running film series. Audiences begin to know what to expect, so they stop caring and subsequently stop watching. The reason no TV show runs forever is because it’s naive to think that any one series can continue to be popular and successful with every passing season. Good franchises quit while they’re ahead, like how Seinfeld went off the air as the number one show on television. Others don’t know when to quit, like how the Simpsons are entering their 31st season despite the fact that fewer and fewer people watch the show for its quality.
A good franchise knows when to put a period at the end of the sentence. Deathly Hallows: Part Two should have ended the Harry Potter franchise completely, but then Warner Brothers realized they could make more money out of it. Disney claims that the upcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker will be the last Star Wars movie to follow the Skywalker/Solo storyline, but weren’t those characters the reason we were interested in Star Wars? Marvel faces a similar problem. Avengers: Endgame was marketed as the grand finale of the series, the culmination of 22 movies that came before it, but Endgame was an ellipsis, not a period.
Marvel has grand plans for the next dozen or so movies, but I have to say, even as a longtime fan, I don’t care about the new characters as much as I did the original characters. Will the future MCU movies be entertaining? Probably, but I won’t have the same level of investment as I did with Iron Man back in 2008 or Captain America back in 2011. Studios seem to think that what audiences want is more movies in the same universe: Harry Potter movies that feature young versions of the characters we know, or Star Wars movies that don’t connect to the characters we care about. It wasn’t the fact that the characters were labelled “The Avengers” that made the 2012 movie fun for me; it was that those specific characters became the Avengers.
People will stop watching a given franchise when it’s become too big to enjoy. The reason Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight movies are so beloved is because they had the restraint to stop at a high point. If a fourth film in that series were to come out, would it make a lot of money? Yes, but it would also undermine the ending of the Dark Knight Rises and it wouldn’t move the story forward in a meaningful way. T. S. Eliot once said, “this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper.”
I’m not condemning all franchises, so many of my favorite movies come from the MCU or Star Wars, but a franchise that lasts forever just isn’t feasible. And I would just hate to see movies and characters that I really care about go the same route as Die Hard, Jaws, or Pirates of the Caribbean: series that start off strong but try to squeeze every last dime out of it until there’s nothing left to care about.