In the past I have been fairly down on franchises and what not. While I do not dislike them inherently I do often participate as I love seeing movies and going to movies and participating in movie discussions. However when I am seeking things out to watch I personally tend to favour more original works. Movies from original projects often excite me the most because they are often fun, creative and something different. There is no need to adhere to formulas and these days drop Easter Eggs or include scenes with other characters from a the same franchise. No shared continuity means you can do what you want narratively and you do not need to worry about locking actor’s in to multi-film contracts, or how your mid-credits or post credit scenes will set up the next movie(s). You have freedom and can wow the audience with your originality.
Now, let’s talk about franchises. Specifically, I was thinking in terms of where they may have gone upon continuation. I mean in today’s movie landscape franchise films are hardly missing per se, so when I mean where they may have gone I mean in more of a narrative sense. And for whatever reason while studios prefer franchise based movies eventually franchises will have to stop (or at least take a break) often times later than they should have but sometimes much sooner. Could be money related, could be audience related, I have seen many movies do well at the box office but upset people so much a planned sequel could turn into a canned sequel. There is always the underperforming movie, and usually when this happens I find Hollywood types tend to take the wrong message from why it underperformed, but the end result is usually the same no continuation for a money losing franchise. And finally, possibly my favourite, when they just plain run out of ideas for what to do next so they just throw something random at the wall and see if it sticks. That is when stuff can get really weird and more often than not… shelved for eternity.
Which leads into this week’s prompt.. and I am making it a twofer in case one is a bit obscure: What is your favourite idea for a cancelled franchise? Or where would you like to have seen a franchise/continuation of a story go if more movies were made? For me it comes back to my (current) favourite Superhero: Superman, and the much maligned Superman Lives movie. Back in the day I was part of that maligning as I was not a big Supes fan or Nic Cage fan at the time. Some years later (and now some years ago) I watched The Death of Superman Lives and a lot of the concept art, ideas and everything actually seemed pretty interesting. Like since it was never made or got too far it is hard to say if it would have been a good movie, but it looked interesting and at the very least could have been a different and still entertaining movie, who knows. But I do know that is something I would have liked to see.