Audience and Producers

In the world of film there are two main groups of people: The Producers and The Audience. And for these different groups the purpose of film is very different and so the reason of why franchises are important to them is also very different.

For producers film franchises are very important as they offer the company with protection and security. It achieves this through the use of horizontal integration. Horizontal integration is the process of expanding in to other sectors of one industry, meaning that a company can sell one product over a wide variety of platforms. The ultimate goal of businesses and companies who use Horizontal Integration is to gain ‘Synergy’. Synergy is defined as the interaction of multiple elements to produce an effect greater than the sum of their individual parts. One example of Horizontal integration and synergy being used in order to create security is the John Carter Film. John Carter is considered to be the greatest ‘film flop’ of all time and made an enormous loss, however the company who owned and produced it “The Walt Disney Company” made $14 billion through the use of their Theme parks, merchandise and other products alone meaning that the loss meant nothing to them and they were not overly affected in anyway.

Another reason why film franchises are important to producers is because of the fact that they are sometimes considered simply as a gateway to a bigger business model. This means that along with the main movies the producers can gain money from other platforms that the franchise has been sold as such as: games, spin off TV shows, books and prequels along with toys and other collectable merchandise.  An example of this is Prometheus – the prequel to the film franchise Alien.  This film was released in 2012, 15 years after the fourth instalment of the franchise. This is an example of the franchise being an opening to a bigger business model through the production of a prequel.

Franchises are also important to producers as if the audience is grasped and get connected to the franchise and the characters within it after watching the first movie then the producers know that they have hooked them for the next three to four films. This is another example of obtaining security, as they know that even if the films become worse as the franchise continues that the audience will most likely stick around till the last instalment in order to gain closure. An example of this is the Alien franchise. Most of the audience were hooked by the first film and then were impressed as the second instalment Aliens seemed to be be better than the first by keeping the same themes but bringing much more to the series. However the let down was the third film Alien 3 which was said to try and revert back to the first film’s theme of a single alien and trying to get back to the horror side of the series. This was said to be a mistake as it was badly done and many fans were extremely disappointed. However this seemed to provide closure as the main character of the films - “Ripley” – dies at the end. And then the fourth film was released:  Alien: Resurrection and even though the premise of a ‘Cloned Ripley’ seemed to disgust fans many still went to view it. This is because the fans wanted closure for the series that they believed they had been given at the ending of the previous film.

For Audiences film franchises are very important as they offer comfort, as they are known to want to see the same characters in the same world over and over again. Therefore franchises gain a lot of fans and attention as they see it as a way to indulge in a particular world for more than simply 2 hours. An example of a franchise that attracted fans and held them due to the reappearance of characters is the Alien franchise. Through all four instalments Ripley has been one of the very few consistencies and many of the audience connected with her and became greatly attached which became one of the main reasons why Alien did so well. She survived many alien attacks until she sacrificed herself in order to kill the alien at the conclusion of the third film Alien 3.  This gave many fans closure to the series and allowed them to move on and feel satisfied that the series has met a comfortable end. However this relief was broken upon the release of Alien: Resurrection. Many fans felt cheated at the simple choice to ‘clone Ripley’ in order to return to the franchise as they have . This is because many of the existing fans wished to actually achieve closure and see the actual ending to the series.