July 30, 2025 • 31 mins
On this episode, we discuss the fatigue people have been feeling around franchise movies, particularly the Marvel Cinematic Universe. But where did franchise movies come from, and how did virtually all of Hollywood become so fixated on this kind of film? Walt Hickey, author of You Are What You Watch: How Movies and TV Affect Everything, walks us through the weeds on this, and gets to the bottom of our questions. Walt is also the author of Numlock News.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys, many here just a quick announcement before today's episode.
No such thing is going to be publishing on Wednesdays.
Now stick around after the episode during the credit sequence,
where you will hear why, We've got a fun announcement.
But that's it for now. Enjoy today's episode. I'm Manny,
(00:21):
and this is no such thing, the show where we
settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the
research on today's episode.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Is it just me?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Or are we sick of franchise movies?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I No, there's no no such thing. No touch, thank,
no touch, thank touch, thank touch thank.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Alright, boys, there are a lot of franchise films in
theaters right now. You've got the new Superman movie. You've
got the new Jurassic Park movie. You've got How to
Train Your Dragon, You've got the sequel to Megan M Threegan.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
The now playing page on AMC Theaters dot com, and
I would say that at least half of the movies
on this page are franchise movies. But I'm gonna start
this episode by just kind of like explaining my relationship
to franchises, but more specifically, like comic book franchises. When
I was a kid, I read a good amount of
(01:33):
comic books. I was into pretty much all of the
Marvel characters that are now really popular. And even though
comics were technically popular right there was an entire market
and industry for that kind of stuff, I still wouldn't
necessarily tell people at school that I was reading comics,
(01:54):
right like it, they just weren't mainstream or cool. But
then film studios started using comic books as source material
for their movies. And now there's this giant Marvel cinematic
universe that has made it so that Marvel content is
just normal. Like, even if you actively don't like Marvel movies,
(02:17):
you still have seen many of them. They're just kind
of inescapable.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Marvel movies were never like artistic oscar worthy endeavors, right like,
they were always like big dumb summer blockbuster exhibitions. But
early on in the MCU, they still felt like they
had like structure in decent filmmaking and character development.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
They felt like good faith.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Attempts to tell stories. Fast forward, I don't know, ten
fifteen years, and it just is a lot harder to
feel like that about the movies that Marvel's putting out today,
and it's hard not to think about the contrast between
these kind of cool, interesting stories I was reading as
(03:05):
a kid and the you know, quote unquote slop that
we're getting today. A lot of people, myself included, we
just have fatigue.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, Marvel movies, I don't know them. Yeah, I feel
like me and though are similar in that, like not
really for us.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I like the Toobey Maguire first one. Oh yeah, that
I don't really I mean I could never you could
erase that, and I'm fine.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And those are the for the listeners. Those are the
sam Rymy Spider Man films that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Those were fun.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah yeah, that was also like ten Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Have you seen it since you were a kid?
Speaker 5 (03:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Maybe clips online.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I will maintain that the second Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Still holds up.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I never saw Iron Man.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yeah, I saw the Avengers, but not the one I
saw the one when he killed everybody. Oh sorry spoilers.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That would have been Infinity War.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, Black Panther I watched on a plane. I'm not
gonna say anything about that. That well, that was when
people that's when people were like, wow, this one's a
really good movie, and I was like, Okay, it's relative,
I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
The thing that differentiated Black Panther from the other Marvel
movies for me was like there there was, for the
first time, I think in a Marvel movie, there was
like thought put into why a villain would want to know,
why he would be motivated to do something.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Yeah, y'all sitting up here comfortable, must feel good. It's
about two billion people all over the world. It looks
like us, but their lives are a lot harder.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's like you get to the end of the movie,
you're you're still like, this is a Marvel movie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
This is not like some step above.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It did feel the same caliber as the other Marvel movies,
but this there was a little bit of a difference
here where it was like, okay, yeah, finally there's like
an all black film. Yeah yeah, yeah, so there's like
some representation stuff that people valued a lot, but after
you respect that to be clear. But yeah, it was like,
even if it sucks, it's still finally we got one.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yes. But superhero movies never really were the thing that
like for me, mostly because I struggle with the fact
that most of them don't feel like movies. They feel like, Okay,
we need to show some people fighting and we'll put
some stuff around that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, excuses to do that.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah, which is fine. But then I feel like, yeah,
we're at the point now where okay, we're just showing
up to watch the people fight. Why do I need
to know all this? Like I don't understand anything that's going.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
On, even other franchises if we want to broaden it,
like you can watch most of the Mission Impossibles without
having seen the other one. I mean, I think this
is actually the problem with the newer ones is they
think you need to know all this stuff, which you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
The last one was trash because they spend the entire
time referencing the past things when it doesn't matter because
none of this makes sense. Yeah, yeah, people are overthinking it.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We've we've started to see like a marvel ification of
other franchises, where like, like you were saying, with Mission Impossible,
that started out with the first few movies being these
kind of cool international espionage flicks, and now they are
a lot more marvel fied, where there's recurring characters and
(06:32):
recurring villains and Ethan Hunt is basically a superhero now
and he's no longer trying to get these obscure weapons manufacturers.
He's instead literally saving the entire planet from exploding in
every film. And I just feel like Marvel has kind
of spurred a lot of this change in these kind
of big action movies.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
John Wick. Now they're expanding that that. I haven't seen
Ballerina a John Wick story or whatever it is now.
I'll watch it eventually, but I feel like John Wicks
also had a bad downstream effect on other movies where
there's no just other franchises built off being the John
Wick style.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right guy comes out of killer retirement?
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Like, why is there a sequel to the Bob Odenkirk
john Wick ripoff? Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's really a
nobody too. That movie was fine and fun, Like I
enjoyed watching that, but it's like it's crazy. You see
any trailer for a movie and it's like, it's just
John Wick with this guy instead.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, so we've done a lot of complaining about the
quality of movie franchise films lately, but it turns out
it's not just the quality of these films that are
on the decline. It's also their box office numbers.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Hate to keep.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Using Marvel as an example here, but according to outlets
Variety and The Rap, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just
on a numbers decline, most recently with Captain America, Brave
New World, and the Thunderbolts movie just not living up
to expectations, which is kind of a trend for this
(08:02):
latest phase of the MCU. And a quick stat here
from Variety just to drive the point home. Before twenty
twenty so pre Pandemic, nineteen out of twenty two Marvel
Cinematic Universe films made at least five hundred million dollars globally,
but since then only six out of thirteen films have
(08:24):
reached that benchmark. Obviously, COVID must have played a role
in those first couple of years of the pandemic, but
I'm not so sure that can be used as an
explanation today. I'll include those articles from Variety and The
Wrap in our substack for this episode. But before we
get to our expert, I wanted to ask you to
what is your take on this? Why do you think
(08:44):
these movie franchises are on a financial decline?
Speaker 4 (08:48):
My take is I think they're getting too complicated, and
I think they're by getting so complicated, you're ruining the
whole point of a Marvel movie, which is like you
just show up. It's fun for the family, it's a
popcorn film. You don't have to think. Everything is just
kind of right there in front of you. You know,
like there's nothing you have to like put, you know,
(09:09):
go talk to your friends about it, do homework. Yeah, exactly,
like you can, like the Nerds always did that, and like,
but like you could show up knowing nothing and enjoy it.
And I feel like now we're at the point where,
like my mom can't just show up and watch a
Marvel movie because she's just gonna be asking me the
entire time and what's happening.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, that's a really good point. Don't make me do
homework to see Paul.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Not a Marvel movie.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
And I also think just generally, it's like you had
a good run, like things only last so long before
you kind of need a break.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
There's obviously an.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Appetite for that sort of stuff, for superheroes and these
sorts of things. Yeah, but like you can only do
so much with one.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You just one time, you just don't want it to
feel cheap when you're watching it. Like I remember when
the Star Wars prequels came out, and I'm a bit
of a prequels defender.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I will do it on MOS.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You will try, Like, did those movies absolutely suck ass?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
But the reason, but the reason I think they are
so much more rewatchable than the new Star Wars trilogy
is that there was a vision and there was compelling
enough reason to tell that story. Those movies ended up
not being good for a bunch of different reasons, but
I think they're infinitely better, or at least more rewatchable
(10:31):
than the sequels, which got produced explicitly to sell toys
and get people to Disneyland. It's just so obvious when
content is naturally developed versus content that is totally forced.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I have a pitch for Star Wars.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
They should make a movie that's just and tell me
if they did this so I can watch it. But
a movie where they're just in the cantina from the
original movies and just those guys hanging out doing you know,
gambling and stuff. Get like Jim Jarmuscher, Kevin Smith or something.
Though I'd be happy to write it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
All right, it was good to hear why you two
think people are becoming fatigued by franchise movies. But after
the break we're gonna get some real answers from Walt Ticki.
He's an executive editor over at Sherwood News, but more
importantly for us, he's the author.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Of You Are What You Watch?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
How movies and TV affect everything.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
We'll be back in a bit. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Before the break, we established that people are getting tired
of franchise movies. We use Marvel as an example, but
that's not the only one. I think people are tired
of franchises in general, and so I wanted to talk
to Walticky, author of You Are What You Watch, to
figure out why. Before we talk about the decline of
franchise movies, I wanted to ask Walt about the Incline,
(11:55):
right like, I wanted to figure out how they got popular.
And to my surprise, it turns out that franchise storytelling
is like an ancient practice.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Franchise storytelling is the oldest kind of storytelling that we have.
If you want one of the first franchises that you've
probably been familiar with, the Odyssey, the Iliad and the
ideod Right, you've got the first installment in the Iliad,
you've got the sequel in the Odyssey, and then you've
got the spinoff that another studio took on later in
the India. You have these stories that we keep coming
back to that we are obsessed with these heroes, these
(12:30):
individuals that we like quite a bit. Right, it's not
just American Hollywood thing. It is a global thing, right.
Sherlock Holmes is a classic example of a character that
kept on getting installments done in their name, Like ancient
heroes like Hercules. There was this popular fella that they
did four canonical books about called Jesus that eventually lots
(12:51):
of other people took on books about, and so like,
at the end of the day, you have this just
being a fairly integral way that we tell stories. Like
recognizable characters, we like recognizable stories, We like recognizable plot lines,
plotlines that articulate things about how the world changes and
how we understand them.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So you know, of course I knew that like the
Odyssey and the Iliad were related, and like I just
I don't know why I'd never thought.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
About those as franchise, but like it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's like Homer probably wrote the second one because people
like the first one, right, I don't know, like I
don't know going on back then.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yo ho, we need the second one dropping.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The kind of takeaway here being that like, of course
we're all we all like when we recognize characters and
stories from previous iterations.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
That makes sense to me that you know, like you're familiar,
you're comfortable with it, like it's a it's a good
entry point. But this is the issue I have with
the Marvel stuff. Now it's like, I'm going to watch
Captain America and who the hell? Now this is a
different there's a different guy. What's happening? I got there's
the thing I'm you're familiar with. There's I'm completely thrown
(14:03):
off within the first five minutes in a movie. So like,
the reason that we like these things is immediately dismiss
in undermined in some way.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The whole is read now, yes, come on, the fuck.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
He's not Mark Ruffalo.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Captain America's black.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So we've learned that franchise storytelling is actually like a
byproduct of human nature to an extent, we just like
doing it. But let's fast forward several thousands of years
and figure out how franchise movies specifically became popular.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
There's this popular perception that the only thing that people
in Hollywood care about is making money. And this is close,
but it is wrong because the main thing that people
care about in Hollywood is not losing money. And those
are two different incentive structures. Right, making money, you know,
you have a very very high upside. But if you fail,
(15:03):
then you lose money, then you're out of a job.
People lose their job all the time for that reason. Right,
if you lost money on a movie, if you make
a twenty percent return on a movie, maybe it's not
you know, huge, not cataclysmic, you're not you know, getting
a star on the Walk of Fame, but you keep
your job. And so the incentive structure, you know, particularly now,
particularly as these companies are now publicly traded, right, all
(15:24):
the studios are publicly traded corporations, is they would much
rather have reliable returns then they would have, you know,
very big hits and misses. And this is this is
a shift, right, This is a shift from the way
that studios had operated in the past. Particularly you know,
if you look at the New Hollywood era, if you
look at the era when the studios were backed by
(15:44):
financiers who, like you know, they weren't publicly traded. They
were just backed by rich guys who were like, this
is a really great way to make money. They were
willing to take more risks, and they were willing to
do more interesting things just because it was an emergent
medium and just because they were accountable frankly only to themselves.
And as a result, you were able to make these wagers.
And yes, they were still basing things on pre existing IP.
(16:05):
They would option books all the time and make them
into movies, but you were if you look at the
starting point for a lot of franchises, you talk about
the sixties, seventies and eighties, right, And the reason for that,
in no small part was that they were not as
accountable to shareholders as modern day studios are, and shareholders
prefer reliable profits over very volatile quarters. Now that the
(16:28):
shareholder incentive is to get reliable returns, you have seen
people become really really entrenched in franchise related filmmaking, whether
that's reboot sequels or you know, just any kind of
continuation of pre existing IP.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So I of course knew that like the proliferation of
franchise films was mostly due to money, like is the
best way for people to make money, But I never
thought about it being a risk assessment. I never thought
about Actually it's more about not losing money than it
is about making money. And that's why we're probably saying
fewer and fewer like original novel ideas.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Yeah, just depressing. You look at the great movies of before,
like the seventies, like not saying where it's like, yeah,
just some rich guy with the studio funding things and
some are gonna be good and some are gonna be bad,
versus today where it's just like one, we find one
thing that works and just keep doing that over and
over and over and over and over. Yeah, it's like
(17:27):
very lowest common denominator to just grow and grow as
much as you can, versus like at least having some
sort of shot at making something interesting and good, right
that also could make you a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
All Right, it's time to get to the question at hand.
Why are these movies actually on the decline? Are we
just burnt out or is there something else going on
here that's after the break? Good?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Nice?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Huh?
Speaker 5 (17:56):
That was good stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Keep them coming back.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I guess I gotta sit through these days.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
All right, we're back before the break. We heard from
Walt Hickey, author of.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You Are What You Watch.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We learned that franchise storytelling is an ancient practice. We
learned that studios are incentivized to do franchise films essentially
because they're more beholden to shareholders who are beholden to profits.
And we learned that audiences love cinematic universes essentially because
they love a relationship with IP. If all of these
(18:30):
things are true, why are franchise films on the decline?
Waltz identified three reasons for why this is. Reason Number one,
franchises have exhausted the best of the source material.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
The way that the studios very wisely perceived Marvel is
that Marvel Comics was an R and D operation that
went on for sixty years that tested at a very
very cheap rate all things considered, ideas and concepts and
characters that, as a result of the market conditions over
(19:06):
the course of the you know, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
two thousands, were able to decisively determine what the best
possible stories from the best possible characters were, right, Spider
Man has a notoriously deep bench. Right, there's a reason
that the Sam Raimi movies hit some of the characters
and the villains that were the most iconic for Spider Man, right,
the X Men movies when they emerged on the scene.
(19:27):
There's a reason that they did the stories that they did. Right.
Days of Future Past was so high on the docket
because that's considered one of the best comic stories of
all time. Right, and so they're pulling from material that
has tried, tested, and approof. They're working with heaters, right,
they were pulling from the best. They were stealing from
the best. What have the past couple of years post
Endgame involved, They haven't been pulling from the comics in
(19:51):
as much of a direct way. Part of that's just
because some of these comics are weaker. Some of these
characters didn't have the iconic runs that you think if
you look at like the Black Widow movie, the Eternal's movie,
the Multiverse of Madness movie, Wakonda Forever, Quantumnia, Thunderbolts, even Marvels.
These were not there's no specific comic arc that these
are based on. They are not pulling off of the
(20:13):
Red Hot Fire that was some of the best comics
in the past sixty years. If you look at the
counterpoint though, like Deadpool and Wolverine was a very successful
comic before they made it into a movie, Like you know,
that was a proven rapport and so at the end
of the day, like I think that there's this issue
that they have where the well is running a bit
dry on the stories that are very meaningful and it's
causing them problems.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So the idea that franchise films, especially Marvel, kind of
ran out of source material makes a ton of sense
to me, and it reminds me of something that happened
in TV a few years back when Game of Thrones,
the TV show caught up to where Game of Thrones
(20:57):
the books were, and the TV show had to keep going,
but there was just an immediate, clear drop off in quality.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
George R. R.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones books, told
the TV show runners what was gonna happen anyway, But
without that already written dialogue, without the plot structuring that
George R. Martin wrote in the previous books, the TV
show just was clearly different. It didn't have the same
weight all of a sudden, characters are traveling distances in
(21:28):
one scene that would have taken them an entire season
in previous seasons. It just felt a lot sloppier, and
even though the show looked better and better as the
seasons went on, similar to these Marvel films, I think
the difference in quality was so clear when there was
no longer source material to work from.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Well, and I think part of it too, right, It's like,
is a difference when you're focused on writing a story
for the sake of like writing a good story versus
like I need to write the story real quick so
that we could make a movie.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
And then I think a good contrast is like Avatar. Clearly,
that's like James Cameronton about that for since he was
like ten or something. He has sketches of it, and
it's like, all right, it's crazy he's trying to do
these five movies or whatever, but like those feel very
connected and like still have a piece.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It was like a mission.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
You know, there's a lot more intention exactly. And it's
actually a perfect segue because Walt's second reason why franchise
movies are on the decline is a concept he's calling
exploitation versus innovation.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
The studios aren't actually good at new ideas. The two
biggest properties that that Disney owns are Star Wars and Marvel,
and they were both bought right, Like, Marvel obviously was
its own fascinating little operation that they bought in, you know,
in the early two thousands. Star Wars was its own,
like a very successful independent film company, like all the
all the Star Wars prequels were independent films. He financed
(22:48):
them based on the toy sales. It was. It was
an incredible maneuver. Right, Disney hasn't really produced an in
house original franchise in a very long time, like Pixar,
again was an acquisition. But like if you really think
about it, you have to talk about like maybe Moan
and Frozen were the most successful in house Disney born
and bread products and even those hypothetically they poached lim
(23:08):
Memo Miranda, they poached Robert Lopez and you know, to
do all the Disney songs and so like, these institutions
are not necessarily R and D departments. They're acquisition vehicles
for R and D departments that can eventually be exploited
through toys parks, cruises and so and so the fact
that these things run out of gas should not be surprising.
(23:28):
I guess it's kind of what I'm saying that this
is the very nature of the corporate studio product is
antithetical to necessarily innovating on any level that is not exploitation.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So a lot of this does seem to be kind
of pointing back to like the pitfalls of capitalism.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
If it's true that like all these places need to
make as much money as possible, then we're just going
to be stuck in that for a long time, I
think unless the incentive structure for filmmaking changes.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Now that makes sense in terms of the you know,
thinking about the studios and being able to innovate themselves.
So they're just buying the innovators.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, I wouldn't even say that they can't innovate if
they just there's no reason.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
For them to inter when they can.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Quiet It's both right, it's like it's easier to do
this and safer and like safer and all that, because
it's like yeah, and just think like more broadly, like
how many directors or producers can make something by themselves,
Like you hear all the time about really famous, great
well esteemed directors who like can't get projects off the ground,
(24:34):
like even you know, scrasezy or something like. It seems
like basically Christopher Nolan is maybe the only person who
can do that or like you know, Paul Thomas Anderson
kind of just because like but like that's very that
feels more like the old model of just like yeah,
he just has like backers who will give him the
money to do whatever and it doesn't really matter how
the movie does. Nolan actually will make the billion dollars,
(24:54):
So yeah, he can do the crazy you know. It's
funny because he's doing the Odyssey. Yeah, so it's like,
well he's doing it for franchise.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Like I can't come up with anything original, Chris, but
like he's one of the He's probably like the only
person I can really think of to do it. Meanwhile,
David Fincher is in the trenches doing like Once upon
a Time in Hollywood two for Netflix's Ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
All Right. The third and final reason why movie franchises
are on the decline, according to Wall Ticky, is just
trend cycles.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The trend cycle thing is like even within superheroes. We've
seen the trend cycle come back and reverse. You go
back to like the first Batman in the sixties, right,
that was a joke. Batman was a silly banana. He was,
you know, Adam West doing all that kind of stuff,
fun stuff. I am a little hungry, of course, Robin.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Even crime fighters must eat, and especially you you're a
growing boy and you need your nutrition.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Then you get a more serious take from the Tim
Burton movies. And then again you have the Batman, the
animated series, which is again for children. Right. I was
one of these children and really enjoyed it. You have
you know, this dark, pretty Batman, and then you have
a more aspirationle. It just comes and goes and comes
and goes. And so we are on the point of
the trend cycle where we are at the end of
one in the beginning of the other. It is not
(26:15):
shocking to me that the two big superhero releases the summer,
Superman and Fantastic Four are going back to a lot
more of an earnest feeling, right, They're going back to
that more like glinty eyed staring at the sun. We're
done snarking, and like snark is the era that brought
the MCU in. It has had significantly diminishing returns over
the past couple of years, and I think that we
(26:36):
just have to see how that pendulum swings, because it
could very well work. The people who were eighteen when
Iron Man came out are in their mid thirties and
have kids, and maybe they want to see a movie
about a family now, and so this really could Like
part of this is just the organic trend cycle and
how to be ruthless about it. So like those are
the things that are kind of fatiguing. I think, like
the exhaustion of this trend cycle, the just nature of exploitation,
(26:56):
and just the exhaustion of the material. But like I
think that there's hope here, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, it makes sense to trend cycles.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
It's like, all right, the reason why I stop wearing
a shirt is because I've gotten used to it.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's no longer providing a variety for me.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And I can see that easily happening with like Marvel movies,
where it's like, all right, I get it. It's been
fifteen years of the kind of like oh that just happened.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, lines, he's right behind.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Me, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So it's really easy to get tired of that. So
we got the three reasons why Walt thinks movie franchises
are on the decline.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
They all make sense.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I did ask him, though, like what he thinks the
future of franchise films will be.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Franchises have existed for thousands of years. They've become very
popular and central to a particular business model. Now that
is absolutely true. You can say a lot of things
about the film industry, but again, like they are rational
economic actors and audiences are rational economic actors. The film
industry is, in its own way ruthless. Right, Like if
(28:06):
a movie bombs, if a movie does bad, then they
don't make more of that movie anymore. If a movie
does well, they make more of the movie. And I
think that they are not so beholden to the existing
model that you can see this absence of innovation. Right.
Marvel tends to do this by bringing in new filmmakers. Right.
They tend to try to get new blood into the
organization to see what works and then bring back the
folks who were most effective. There's a reason that like
(28:28):
and Or is like real hot right now, potentially gonna
win an Emmy is the most vibrant thing in Star
Wars yet, because they gave it to a filmmaker who
has a very specific vision about what he thought aught
to exist in Star Wars. And his answer was, we
should make the Battle of Algiers and Star Wars. And
it's a great answer, and like it kind of goes
back to like what Lucas was doing, because Lucas wasn't
trying to at least originally, he wasn't just trying to
(28:50):
make more Star Wars movies. He was trying to do like,
all right, I want to see if I make the
Viat Kong fuzzy, will America root for them? And in
the Return of the Jedi, like, the answer was hell,
oh yeah, man. Ultimately, any kind of genre filmmaking has
to stay on its toes and stay innovative and be
something new, because the one thing that audiences love more
(29:11):
than seeing something that they already love is seeing something
very novel.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Once again, Walt making a ton of sense there with
the importance of these franchise films to you know, maintain
a variety and a freshness as they move forward. That
is interesting to think about the kind of trend lately
where the studios are handing the reins over to more
(29:40):
auteur filmmakers.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
What do you guys think of that?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think it depends if the studios actually want to
let the auteurs do something interesting and new, versus like
I just need somebody to put their name on this
movie and hear out of parameters and you got to
work within that. I think that was the big issue
with the Barry Jenkins Lion King read yeah, right, where
(30:04):
it's like we want Barry Jenkins to do this movie,
but you have to do it in this particular way
and here's the script and like here's it parameters and
it's not very good.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Or like the woman who directed Nomadland. Yes, it's like
you see it all the time where it's like you
win the Oscar for this great original work you do
and then you're doing this other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
What does she do next?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Oh Chloe Chloe zoo oh yeah, and then that movie
did horribly, but it has it's like they get this
flashy name to do it. Like what do you even
do if you're directing a movie like that, like you
probably have barely any.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, and yeah it does.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It does seem to come down to the too, you
know something we've heard in comic books for a very
long time.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
With great power. I'm not even going to finish it.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Thanks for listening to No
Such Thing. Produced by Manny, Noah and Devin. This was
the first episode of season two, which we are happy
to announce is in collaboration with Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a
podcast production company. They have a ton of great shows
(31:19):
and we're so excited not just to be added to
their roster, but also to be working with them to
make even better episodes of No Such Thing. So, with
that said, this is a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our
executive producers are mangesh Hati Kadur and Kate Osborne. The
intro theme in the new outro theme is produced by
(31:39):
me Manny. Thank you to our guest Walt Hicky, author
of Who Are With You? Watch See You next time?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Such Thing
Hey, guys, many here just a quick announcement before today's episode.
No such thing is going to be publishing on Wednesdays.
Now stick around after the episode during the credit sequence,
where you will hear why, We've got a fun announcement.
But that's it for now. Enjoy today's episode. I'm Manny,
(00:21):
and this is no such thing, the show where we
settle our dumb arguments and yours by actually doing the
research on today's episode.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
Is it just me?
Speaker 1 (00:30):
Or are we sick of franchise movies?
Speaker 3 (00:35):
I No, there's no no such thing. No touch, thank,
no touch, thank touch, thank touch thank.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Alright, boys, there are a lot of franchise films in
theaters right now. You've got the new Superman movie. You've
got the new Jurassic Park movie. You've got How to
Train Your Dragon, You've got the sequel to Megan M Threegan.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
I'm looking at.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
The now playing page on AMC Theaters dot com, and
I would say that at least half of the movies
on this page are franchise movies. But I'm gonna start
this episode by just kind of like explaining my relationship
to franchises, but more specifically, like comic book franchises. When
I was a kid, I read a good amount of
(01:33):
comic books. I was into pretty much all of the
Marvel characters that are now really popular. And even though
comics were technically popular right there was an entire market
and industry for that kind of stuff, I still wouldn't
necessarily tell people at school that I was reading comics,
(01:54):
right like it, they just weren't mainstream or cool. But
then film studios started using comic books as source material
for their movies. And now there's this giant Marvel cinematic
universe that has made it so that Marvel content is
just normal. Like, even if you actively don't like Marvel movies,
(02:17):
you still have seen many of them. They're just kind
of inescapable.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
Now.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
Marvel movies were never like artistic oscar worthy endeavors, right like,
they were always like big dumb summer blockbuster exhibitions. But
early on in the MCU, they still felt like they
had like structure in decent filmmaking and character development.
Speaker 2 (02:43):
They felt like good faith.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Attempts to tell stories. Fast forward, I don't know, ten
fifteen years, and it just is a lot harder to
feel like that about the movies that Marvel's putting out today,
and it's hard not to think about the contrast between
these kind of cool, interesting stories I was reading as
(03:05):
a kid and the you know, quote unquote slop that
we're getting today. A lot of people, myself included, we
just have fatigue.
Speaker 4 (03:19):
Well, Marvel movies, I don't know them. Yeah, I feel
like me and though are similar in that, like not
really for us.
Speaker 5 (03:28):
I like the Toobey Maguire first one. Oh yeah, that
I don't really I mean I could never you could
erase that, and I'm fine.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
That's pretty much it.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And those are the for the listeners. Those are the
sam Rymy Spider Man films that.
Speaker 4 (03:43):
Those were fun.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
Yeah yeah, that was also like ten Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:47):
Have you seen it since you were a kid?
Speaker 5 (03:50):
No?
Speaker 2 (03:51):
Maybe clips online.
Speaker 1 (03:53):
I will maintain that the second Spider Man.
Speaker 2 (03:57):
Still holds up.
Speaker 5 (03:58):
I never saw Iron Man.
Speaker 4 (04:00):
Yeah, I saw the Avengers, but not the one I
saw the one when he killed everybody. Oh sorry spoilers.
Speaker 2 (04:10):
That would have been Infinity War.
Speaker 3 (04:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (04:12):
Yeah, Black Panther I watched on a plane. I'm not
gonna say anything about that. That well, that was when
people that's when people were like, wow, this one's a
really good movie, and I was like, Okay, it's relative,
I guess. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
The thing that differentiated Black Panther from the other Marvel
movies for me was like there there was, for the
first time, I think in a Marvel movie, there was
like thought put into why a villain would want to know,
why he would be motivated to do something.
Speaker 6 (04:39):
Yeah, y'all sitting up here comfortable, must feel good. It's
about two billion people all over the world. It looks
like us, but their lives are a lot harder.
Speaker 2 (04:50):
But yeah, you're right.
Speaker 1 (04:51):
It's like you get to the end of the movie,
you're you're still like, this is a Marvel movie.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
This is not like some step above.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
It did feel the same caliber as the other Marvel movies,
but this there was a little bit of a difference
here where it was like, okay, yeah, finally there's like
an all black film. Yeah yeah, yeah, so there's like
some representation stuff that people valued a lot, but after
you respect that to be clear. But yeah, it was like,
even if it sucks, it's still finally we got one.
Speaker 4 (05:17):
Yes. But superhero movies never really were the thing that
like for me, mostly because I struggle with the fact
that most of them don't feel like movies. They feel like, Okay,
we need to show some people fighting and we'll put
some stuff around that.
Speaker 2 (05:34):
Yeah, excuses to do that.
Speaker 4 (05:36):
Yeah, which is fine. But then I feel like, yeah,
we're at the point now where okay, we're just showing
up to watch the people fight. Why do I need
to know all this? Like I don't understand anything that's going.
Speaker 5 (05:47):
On, even other franchises if we want to broaden it,
like you can watch most of the Mission Impossibles without
having seen the other one. I mean, I think this
is actually the problem with the newer ones is they
think you need to know all this stuff, which you don't.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 5 (06:00):
The last one was trash because they spend the entire
time referencing the past things when it doesn't matter because
none of this makes sense. Yeah, yeah, people are overthinking it.
Speaker 2 (06:10):
Yeah. It's interesting.
Speaker 1 (06:11):
We've we've started to see like a marvel ification of
other franchises, where like, like you were saying, with Mission Impossible,
that started out with the first few movies being these
kind of cool international espionage flicks, and now they are
a lot more marvel fied, where there's recurring characters and
(06:32):
recurring villains and Ethan Hunt is basically a superhero now
and he's no longer trying to get these obscure weapons manufacturers.
He's instead literally saving the entire planet from exploding in
every film. And I just feel like Marvel has kind
of spurred a lot of this change in these kind
of big action movies.
Speaker 5 (06:53):
John Wick. Now they're expanding that that. I haven't seen
Ballerina a John Wick story or whatever it is now.
I'll watch it eventually, but I feel like John Wicks
also had a bad downstream effect on other movies where
there's no just other franchises built off being the John
Wick style.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
Right guy comes out of killer retirement?
Speaker 5 (07:12):
Like, why is there a sequel to the Bob Odenkirk
john Wick ripoff? Yeah, it's like, yeah, there's really a
nobody too. That movie was fine and fun, Like I
enjoyed watching that, but it's like it's crazy. You see
any trailer for a movie and it's like, it's just
John Wick with this guy instead.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
Okay, so we've done a lot of complaining about the
quality of movie franchise films lately, but it turns out
it's not just the quality of these films that are
on the decline. It's also their box office numbers.
Speaker 2 (07:41):
Hate to keep.
Speaker 1 (07:42):
Using Marvel as an example here, but according to outlets
Variety and The Rap, the Marvel Cinematic Universe is just
on a numbers decline, most recently with Captain America, Brave
New World, and the Thunderbolts movie just not living up
to expectations, which is kind of a trend for this
(08:02):
latest phase of the MCU. And a quick stat here
from Variety just to drive the point home. Before twenty
twenty so pre Pandemic, nineteen out of twenty two Marvel
Cinematic Universe films made at least five hundred million dollars globally,
but since then only six out of thirteen films have
(08:24):
reached that benchmark. Obviously, COVID must have played a role
in those first couple of years of the pandemic, but
I'm not so sure that can be used as an
explanation today. I'll include those articles from Variety and The
Wrap in our substack for this episode. But before we
get to our expert, I wanted to ask you to
what is your take on this? Why do you think
(08:44):
these movie franchises are on a financial decline?
Speaker 4 (08:48):
My take is I think they're getting too complicated, and
I think they're by getting so complicated, you're ruining the
whole point of a Marvel movie, which is like you
just show up. It's fun for the family, it's a
popcorn film. You don't have to think. Everything is just
kind of right there in front of you. You know,
like there's nothing you have to like put, you know,
(09:09):
go talk to your friends about it, do homework. Yeah, exactly,
like you can, like the Nerds always did that, and like,
but like you could show up knowing nothing and enjoy it.
And I feel like now we're at the point where,
like my mom can't just show up and watch a
Marvel movie because she's just gonna be asking me the
entire time and what's happening.
Speaker 1 (09:26):
Yeah, that's a really good point. Don't make me do
homework to see Paul.
Speaker 4 (09:31):
Not a Marvel movie.
Speaker 5 (09:33):
And I also think just generally, it's like you had
a good run, like things only last so long before
you kind of need a break.
Speaker 2 (09:40):
There's obviously an.
Speaker 5 (09:41):
Appetite for that sort of stuff, for superheroes and these
sorts of things. Yeah, but like you can only do
so much with one.
Speaker 1 (09:47):
You just one time, you just don't want it to
feel cheap when you're watching it. Like I remember when
the Star Wars prequels came out, and I'm a bit
of a prequels defender.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
I will do it on MOS.
Speaker 1 (10:02):
You will try, Like, did those movies absolutely suck ass?
Speaker 2 (10:08):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (10:09):
But the reason, but the reason I think they are
so much more rewatchable than the new Star Wars trilogy
is that there was a vision and there was compelling
enough reason to tell that story. Those movies ended up
not being good for a bunch of different reasons, but
I think they're infinitely better, or at least more rewatchable
(10:31):
than the sequels, which got produced explicitly to sell toys
and get people to Disneyland. It's just so obvious when
content is naturally developed versus content that is totally forced.
Speaker 2 (10:45):
I have a pitch for Star Wars.
Speaker 5 (10:46):
They should make a movie that's just and tell me
if they did this so I can watch it. But
a movie where they're just in the cantina from the
original movies and just those guys hanging out doing you know,
gambling and stuff. Get like Jim Jarmuscher, Kevin Smith or something.
Though I'd be happy to write it.
Speaker 1 (11:05):
All right, it was good to hear why you two
think people are becoming fatigued by franchise movies. But after
the break we're gonna get some real answers from Walt Ticki.
He's an executive editor over at Sherwood News, but more
importantly for us, he's the author.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Of You Are What You Watch?
Speaker 1 (11:24):
How movies and TV affect everything.
Speaker 2 (11:27):
We'll be back in a bit. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1 (11:32):
Before the break, we established that people are getting tired
of franchise movies. We use Marvel as an example, but
that's not the only one. I think people are tired
of franchises in general, and so I wanted to talk
to Walticky, author of You Are What You Watch, to
figure out why. Before we talk about the decline of
franchise movies, I wanted to ask Walt about the Incline,
(11:55):
right like, I wanted to figure out how they got popular.
And to my surprise, it turns out that franchise storytelling
is like an ancient practice.
Speaker 3 (12:08):
Franchise storytelling is the oldest kind of storytelling that we have.
If you want one of the first franchises that you've
probably been familiar with, the Odyssey, the Iliad and the
ideod Right, you've got the first installment in the Iliad,
you've got the sequel in the Odyssey, and then you've
got the spinoff that another studio took on later in
the India. You have these stories that we keep coming
back to that we are obsessed with these heroes, these
(12:30):
individuals that we like quite a bit. Right, it's not
just American Hollywood thing. It is a global thing, right.
Sherlock Holmes is a classic example of a character that
kept on getting installments done in their name, Like ancient
heroes like Hercules. There was this popular fella that they
did four canonical books about called Jesus that eventually lots
(12:51):
of other people took on books about, and so like,
at the end of the day, you have this just
being a fairly integral way that we tell stories. Like
recognizable characters, we like recognizable stories, We like recognizable plot lines,
plotlines that articulate things about how the world changes and
how we understand them.
Speaker 1 (13:12):
So you know, of course I knew that like the
Odyssey and the Iliad were related, and like I just
I don't know why I'd never thought.
Speaker 2 (13:18):
About those as franchise, but like it kind of makes sense.
Speaker 1 (13:21):
It's like Homer probably wrote the second one because people
like the first one, right, I don't know, like I
don't know going on back then.
Speaker 2 (13:29):
Yo ho, we need the second one dropping.
Speaker 1 (13:34):
The kind of takeaway here being that like, of course
we're all we all like when we recognize characters and
stories from previous iterations.
Speaker 4 (13:41):
That makes sense to me that you know, like you're familiar,
you're comfortable with it, like it's a it's a good
entry point. But this is the issue I have with
the Marvel stuff. Now it's like, I'm going to watch
Captain America and who the hell? Now this is a
different there's a different guy. What's happening? I got there's
the thing I'm you're familiar with. There's I'm completely thrown
(14:03):
off within the first five minutes in a movie. So like,
the reason that we like these things is immediately dismiss
in undermined in some way.
Speaker 2 (14:13):
The whole is read now, yes, come on, the fuck.
Speaker 6 (14:19):
He's not Mark Ruffalo.
Speaker 2 (14:22):
Captain America's black.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
So we've learned that franchise storytelling is actually like a
byproduct of human nature to an extent, we just like
doing it. But let's fast forward several thousands of years
and figure out how franchise movies specifically became popular.
Speaker 3 (14:40):
There's this popular perception that the only thing that people
in Hollywood care about is making money. And this is close,
but it is wrong because the main thing that people
care about in Hollywood is not losing money. And those
are two different incentive structures. Right, making money, you know,
you have a very very high upside. But if you fail,
(15:03):
then you lose money, then you're out of a job.
People lose their job all the time for that reason. Right,
if you lost money on a movie, if you make
a twenty percent return on a movie, maybe it's not
you know, huge, not cataclysmic, you're not you know, getting
a star on the Walk of Fame, but you keep
your job. And so the incentive structure, you know, particularly now,
particularly as these companies are now publicly traded, right, all
(15:24):
the studios are publicly traded corporations, is they would much
rather have reliable returns then they would have, you know,
very big hits and misses. And this is this is
a shift, right, This is a shift from the way
that studios had operated in the past. Particularly you know,
if you look at the New Hollywood era, if you
look at the era when the studios were backed by
(15:44):
financiers who, like you know, they weren't publicly traded. They
were just backed by rich guys who were like, this
is a really great way to make money. They were
willing to take more risks, and they were willing to
do more interesting things just because it was an emergent
medium and just because they were accountable frankly only to themselves.
And as a result, you were able to make these wagers.
And yes, they were still basing things on pre existing IP.
(16:05):
They would option books all the time and make them
into movies, but you were if you look at the
starting point for a lot of franchises, you talk about
the sixties, seventies and eighties, right, And the reason for that,
in no small part was that they were not as
accountable to shareholders as modern day studios are, and shareholders
prefer reliable profits over very volatile quarters. Now that the
(16:28):
shareholder incentive is to get reliable returns, you have seen
people become really really entrenched in franchise related filmmaking, whether
that's reboot sequels or you know, just any kind of
continuation of pre existing IP.
Speaker 1 (16:42):
So I of course knew that like the proliferation of
franchise films was mostly due to money, like is the
best way for people to make money, But I never
thought about it being a risk assessment. I never thought
about Actually it's more about not losing money than it
is about making money. And that's why we're probably saying
fewer and fewer like original novel ideas.
Speaker 5 (17:05):
Yeah, just depressing. You look at the great movies of before,
like the seventies, like not saying where it's like, yeah,
just some rich guy with the studio funding things and
some are gonna be good and some are gonna be bad,
versus today where it's just like one, we find one
thing that works and just keep doing that over and
over and over and over and over. Yeah, it's like
(17:27):
very lowest common denominator to just grow and grow as
much as you can, versus like at least having some
sort of shot at making something interesting and good, right
that also could make you a lot of money.
Speaker 1 (17:38):
All Right, it's time to get to the question at hand.
Why are these movies actually on the decline? Are we
just burnt out or is there something else going on
here that's after the break? Good?
Speaker 2 (17:55):
Nice?
Speaker 4 (17:55):
Huh?
Speaker 5 (17:56):
That was good stuff.
Speaker 2 (17:57):
Keep them coming back.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
I guess I gotta sit through these days.
Speaker 1 (18:03):
All right, we're back before the break. We heard from
Walt Hickey, author of.
Speaker 2 (18:08):
You Are What You Watch.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
We learned that franchise storytelling is an ancient practice. We
learned that studios are incentivized to do franchise films essentially
because they're more beholden to shareholders who are beholden to profits.
And we learned that audiences love cinematic universes essentially because
they love a relationship with IP. If all of these
(18:30):
things are true, why are franchise films on the decline?
Waltz identified three reasons for why this is. Reason Number one,
franchises have exhausted the best of the source material.
Speaker 3 (18:45):
The way that the studios very wisely perceived Marvel is
that Marvel Comics was an R and D operation that
went on for sixty years that tested at a very
very cheap rate all things considered, ideas and concepts and
characters that, as a result of the market conditions over
(19:06):
the course of the you know, sixties, seventies, eighties, nineties,
two thousands, were able to decisively determine what the best
possible stories from the best possible characters were, right, Spider
Man has a notoriously deep bench. Right, there's a reason
that the Sam Raimi movies hit some of the characters
and the villains that were the most iconic for Spider Man, right,
the X Men movies when they emerged on the scene.
(19:27):
There's a reason that they did the stories that they did. Right.
Days of Future Past was so high on the docket
because that's considered one of the best comic stories of
all time. Right, and so they're pulling from material that
has tried, tested, and approof. They're working with heaters, right,
they were pulling from the best. They were stealing from
the best. What have the past couple of years post
Endgame involved, They haven't been pulling from the comics in
(19:51):
as much of a direct way. Part of that's just
because some of these comics are weaker. Some of these
characters didn't have the iconic runs that you think if
you look at like the Black Widow movie, the Eternal's movie,
the Multiverse of Madness movie, Wakonda Forever, Quantumnia, Thunderbolts, even Marvels.
These were not there's no specific comic arc that these
are based on. They are not pulling off of the
(20:13):
Red Hot Fire that was some of the best comics
in the past sixty years. If you look at the
counterpoint though, like Deadpool and Wolverine was a very successful
comic before they made it into a movie, Like you know,
that was a proven rapport and so at the end
of the day, like I think that there's this issue
that they have where the well is running a bit
dry on the stories that are very meaningful and it's
causing them problems.
Speaker 1 (20:35):
So the idea that franchise films, especially Marvel, kind of
ran out of source material makes a ton of sense
to me, and it reminds me of something that happened
in TV a few years back when Game of Thrones,
the TV show caught up to where Game of Thrones
(20:57):
the books were, and the TV show had to keep going,
but there was just an immediate, clear drop off in quality.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
George R. R.
Speaker 1 (21:06):
Martin, the author of the Game of Thrones books, told
the TV show runners what was gonna happen anyway, But
without that already written dialogue, without the plot structuring that
George R. Martin wrote in the previous books, the TV
show just was clearly different. It didn't have the same
weight all of a sudden, characters are traveling distances in
(21:28):
one scene that would have taken them an entire season
in previous seasons. It just felt a lot sloppier, and
even though the show looked better and better as the
seasons went on, similar to these Marvel films, I think
the difference in quality was so clear when there was
no longer source material to work from.
Speaker 4 (21:45):
Well, and I think part of it too, right, It's like,
is a difference when you're focused on writing a story
for the sake of like writing a good story versus
like I need to write the story real quick so
that we could make a movie.
Speaker 5 (21:54):
And then I think a good contrast is like Avatar. Clearly,
that's like James Cameronton about that for since he was
like ten or something. He has sketches of it, and
it's like, all right, it's crazy he's trying to do
these five movies or whatever, but like those feel very
connected and like still have a piece.
Speaker 2 (22:10):
It was like a mission.
Speaker 1 (22:11):
You know, there's a lot more intention exactly. And it's
actually a perfect segue because Walt's second reason why franchise
movies are on the decline is a concept he's calling
exploitation versus innovation.
Speaker 5 (22:25):
Let's go.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
The studios aren't actually good at new ideas. The two
biggest properties that that Disney owns are Star Wars and Marvel,
and they were both bought right, Like, Marvel obviously was
its own fascinating little operation that they bought in, you know,
in the early two thousands. Star Wars was its own,
like a very successful independent film company, like all the
all the Star Wars prequels were independent films. He financed
(22:48):
them based on the toy sales. It was. It was
an incredible maneuver. Right, Disney hasn't really produced an in
house original franchise in a very long time, like Pixar,
again was an acquisition. But like if you really think
about it, you have to talk about like maybe Moan
and Frozen were the most successful in house Disney born
and bread products and even those hypothetically they poached lim
(23:08):
Memo Miranda, they poached Robert Lopez and you know, to
do all the Disney songs and so like, these institutions
are not necessarily R and D departments. They're acquisition vehicles
for R and D departments that can eventually be exploited
through toys parks, cruises and so and so the fact
that these things run out of gas should not be surprising.
(23:28):
I guess it's kind of what I'm saying that this
is the very nature of the corporate studio product is
antithetical to necessarily innovating on any level that is not exploitation.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
So a lot of this does seem to be kind
of pointing back to like the pitfalls of capitalism.
Speaker 3 (23:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (23:43):
If it's true that like all these places need to
make as much money as possible, then we're just going
to be stuck in that for a long time, I
think unless the incentive structure for filmmaking changes.
Speaker 4 (23:54):
Now that makes sense in terms of the you know,
thinking about the studios and being able to innovate themselves.
So they're just buying the innovators.
Speaker 1 (24:05):
Yeah, I wouldn't even say that they can't innovate if
they just there's no reason.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
For them to inter when they can.
Speaker 5 (24:11):
Quiet It's both right, it's like it's easier to do
this and safer and like safer and all that, because
it's like yeah, and just think like more broadly, like
how many directors or producers can make something by themselves,
Like you hear all the time about really famous, great
well esteemed directors who like can't get projects off the ground,
(24:34):
like even you know, scrasezy or something like. It seems
like basically Christopher Nolan is maybe the only person who
can do that or like you know, Paul Thomas Anderson
kind of just because like but like that's very that
feels more like the old model of just like yeah,
he just has like backers who will give him the
money to do whatever and it doesn't really matter how
the movie does. Nolan actually will make the billion dollars,
(24:54):
So yeah, he can do the crazy you know. It's
funny because he's doing the Odyssey. Yeah, so it's like,
well he's doing it for franchise.
Speaker 2 (25:00):
Yeah, yeah, it's great.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Like I can't come up with anything original, Chris, but
like he's one of the He's probably like the only
person I can really think of to do it. Meanwhile,
David Fincher is in the trenches doing like Once upon
a Time in Hollywood two for Netflix's Ridiculous.
Speaker 1 (25:22):
All Right. The third and final reason why movie franchises
are on the decline, according to Wall Ticky, is just
trend cycles.
Speaker 3 (25:35):
The trend cycle thing is like even within superheroes. We've
seen the trend cycle come back and reverse. You go
back to like the first Batman in the sixties, right,
that was a joke. Batman was a silly banana. He was,
you know, Adam West doing all that kind of stuff,
fun stuff. I am a little hungry, of course, Robin.
Speaker 5 (25:49):
Even crime fighters must eat, and especially you you're a
growing boy and you need your nutrition.
Speaker 3 (25:55):
Then you get a more serious take from the Tim
Burton movies. And then again you have the Batman, the
animated series, which is again for children. Right. I was
one of these children and really enjoyed it. You have
you know, this dark, pretty Batman, and then you have
a more aspirationle. It just comes and goes and comes
and goes. And so we are on the point of
the trend cycle where we are at the end of
one in the beginning of the other. It is not
(26:15):
shocking to me that the two big superhero releases the summer,
Superman and Fantastic Four are going back to a lot
more of an earnest feeling, right, They're going back to
that more like glinty eyed staring at the sun. We're
done snarking, and like snark is the era that brought
the MCU in. It has had significantly diminishing returns over
the past couple of years, and I think that we
(26:36):
just have to see how that pendulum swings, because it
could very well work. The people who were eighteen when
Iron Man came out are in their mid thirties and
have kids, and maybe they want to see a movie
about a family now, and so this really could Like
part of this is just the organic trend cycle and
how to be ruthless about it. So like those are
the things that are kind of fatiguing. I think, like
the exhaustion of this trend cycle, the just nature of exploitation,
(26:56):
and just the exhaustion of the material. But like I
think that there's hope here, you know.
Speaker 2 (27:03):
Yeah, it makes sense to trend cycles.
Speaker 1 (27:05):
It's like, all right, the reason why I stop wearing
a shirt is because I've gotten used to it.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
It's no longer providing a variety for me.
Speaker 1 (27:15):
And I can see that easily happening with like Marvel movies,
where it's like, all right, I get it. It's been
fifteen years of the kind of like oh that just happened.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
Yeah, lines, he's right behind.
Speaker 5 (27:26):
Me, isn't he.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
So it's really easy to get tired of that. So
we got the three reasons why Walt thinks movie franchises
are on the decline.
Speaker 2 (27:36):
They all make sense.
Speaker 1 (27:38):
I did ask him, though, like what he thinks the
future of franchise films will be.
Speaker 3 (27:46):
Franchises have existed for thousands of years. They've become very
popular and central to a particular business model. Now that
is absolutely true. You can say a lot of things
about the film industry, but again, like they are rational
economic actors and audiences are rational economic actors. The film
industry is, in its own way ruthless. Right, Like if
(28:06):
a movie bombs, if a movie does bad, then they
don't make more of that movie anymore. If a movie
does well, they make more of the movie. And I
think that they are not so beholden to the existing
model that you can see this absence of innovation. Right.
Marvel tends to do this by bringing in new filmmakers. Right.
They tend to try to get new blood into the
organization to see what works and then bring back the
folks who were most effective. There's a reason that like
(28:28):
and Or is like real hot right now, potentially gonna
win an Emmy is the most vibrant thing in Star
Wars yet, because they gave it to a filmmaker who
has a very specific vision about what he thought aught
to exist in Star Wars. And his answer was, we
should make the Battle of Algiers and Star Wars. And
it's a great answer, and like it kind of goes
back to like what Lucas was doing, because Lucas wasn't
trying to at least originally, he wasn't just trying to
(28:50):
make more Star Wars movies. He was trying to do like,
all right, I want to see if I make the
Viat Kong fuzzy, will America root for them? And in
the Return of the Jedi, like, the answer was hell,
oh yeah, man. Ultimately, any kind of genre filmmaking has
to stay on its toes and stay innovative and be
something new, because the one thing that audiences love more
(29:11):
than seeing something that they already love is seeing something
very novel.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Once again, Walt making a ton of sense there with
the importance of these franchise films to you know, maintain
a variety and a freshness as they move forward. That
is interesting to think about the kind of trend lately
where the studios are handing the reins over to more
(29:40):
auteur filmmakers.
Speaker 2 (29:42):
What do you guys think of that?
Speaker 4 (29:43):
I think it depends if the studios actually want to
let the auteurs do something interesting and new, versus like
I just need somebody to put their name on this
movie and hear out of parameters and you got to
work within that. I think that was the big issue
with the Barry Jenkins Lion King read yeah, right, where
(30:04):
it's like we want Barry Jenkins to do this movie,
but you have to do it in this particular way
and here's the script and like here's it parameters and
it's not very good.
Speaker 5 (30:15):
Or like the woman who directed Nomadland. Yes, it's like
you see it all the time where it's like you
win the Oscar for this great original work you do
and then you're doing this other thing.
Speaker 2 (30:26):
What does she do next?
Speaker 5 (30:29):
Oh Chloe Chloe zoo oh yeah, and then that movie
did horribly, but it has it's like they get this
flashy name to do it. Like what do you even
do if you're directing a movie like that, like you
probably have barely any.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Yeah, and yeah it does.
Speaker 1 (30:43):
It does seem to come down to the too, you
know something we've heard in comic books for a very
long time.
Speaker 2 (30:52):
With great power. I'm not even going to finish it.
Speaker 1 (30:56):
I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Thanks for listening to No
Such Thing. Produced by Manny, Noah and Devin. This was
the first episode of season two, which we are happy
to announce is in collaboration with Kaleidoscope. Kaleidoscope is a
podcast production company. They have a ton of great shows
(31:19):
and we're so excited not just to be added to
their roster, but also to be working with them to
make even better episodes of No Such Thing. So, with
that said, this is a production of Kaleidoscope content. Our
executive producers are mangesh Hati Kadur and Kate Osborne. The
intro theme in the new outro theme is produced by
(31:39):
me Manny. Thank you to our guest Walt Hicky, author
of Who Are With You? Watch See You next time?
Speaker 4 (31:47):
Such Thing
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