The franchise movie enters its second act
Summertime has long been when movie studios release their biggest, most-expensive, most crowd-pleasing films. And over the past several years, those movies have been part of larger franchises that pre-exist any one film’s debut.
But with Avengers: Endgame, the forthcoming Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, and the series finale of Game of Thrones, some of Hollywood’s most reliable franchises are reaching, if not an end, then at least a natural break in the action. Our in-house Hollywood expert, reporter Adam Epstein, takes a look at the film industry’s reliance on these kinds of movies and charts what we can expect, both creatively and financially, in the months and years ahead.
Over the next five days, we’ll be looking at different aspects of the movie-franchise business, including:
- Today’s state-of-play memo,
- A chartbook showing franchises’ rise in movie dominance,
- An analysis of box-office performance to understand what makes a franchise work (or not work),
- A toolkit to help you follow this growing and fast-changing world,
- A members-only conference call with Adam to talk more about Hollywood’s tent-pole strategy.
What’s the next Star Wars? Will they reboot Spider-Man yet again? Can anyone adapt sci-fi literary icon Dune into a successful motion picture? All this and more will be revealed in this week’s field guide, so stay tuned.
Here’s to a productive week,
Sam Grobart
membership editor