EXAM QUESTION REVISION 1

How important are film franchises for producers and audiences?

Film franchises are very important to both producers and audiences respectively. Although these reasons may be different, they still prove they Film franchises are one of the most important ways to please both parts in the industry.

One reason why film franchises are need by producers are essentially to make money. They do this by using the film franchise basically as a gateway to making a lot of money. Back in the 60's the movie industry was very, very different, it was ran by 3 main film companies that using Vertical integration to control the industry and to make as much money as possible from the film itself. But now the film isn't the most effective way of earning money. Franchise is used to establish an audience and a fan base, and them the company exploit this by creating merchandise for everything, theme parks, and spin off shows The perfect example for this is the recent purchase by Disney to Acquire the Star Wars Franchise. This is arguably the best buy of any film company, ever. The fan base for this franchise is phenomenal, and the hard work establishing it is already done. And although they are making a new trilogy. The most important thing is the gateway it creates, and this is further shown by Disney creating a new Star Wars theme park which will make a lot more money than the films themselves.

Horizontal integration is how the industry operates in todays market. Rather than doing everything in the same  company, supplying their own cinemas and actors. Companies share out all aspects of the franchise to make the most money. Again using Disney as an example, Disney own Star Wars, Pixar and Marvel. Two of these are the most well known film companies of this generation, Marvel and Pixar, Both seeing huge success. Not just through films, but through merchandise, and even the game industry. The marvel 'Avengers' Franchise has a film for every hero in the film, Some having two or three, all very successful and making a lot of money, and establishing a fan base. Fans like this because every film is the same, but altered a tiny bit. Every fan goes into the film knowing whats going to happen, A hero encounters a problem, has to make a choice, and defeats the bad guy. This is successful along with franchise because the audience like to have their expectations met and like repetitiveness. An example of where this failed was the Alien franchise. The original Alien was successful and gave the audiences something to expect. And the second film, 'Aliens' was virtually the same, to the extent it was not called Alien 2, but Aliens, But bigger, and better. Then we get to the third film, Alien 3, widely seen as butchering the franchise. It make the mistake of killing off two of the main characters from the second film, characters that the audience spent time bonding with, and were intrigued to learn more about their story. And it took a step back from Aliens, it had less of the horror element, less guns, less action, and boring characters. And at the end, the character that previously lead all 3 films, was killed in the end. This lowered the formerly large fan base and a lot of people didn't go and see the last film.

Although the fact it was a franchise still made people go and see the last film, because fans needed closure, and needed to finish of the series, no matter how bad it was. After the films, the Franchise was kept alive by a smaller aspect of it, the gaming industry. In 1997 the game 'Alien vs Predator' was released, and was widely popular, this fan base influenced a film to be made about the battle of Alien vs Predator' and a sequel to that, and this popularity ultimately lead to the Prequel to the Alien franchise titled 'Prometheus.' This franchise ticked both boxes, creating a huge fan base, and making over 700 million dollars from the 4 Alien films alone. Plus creating the gateway for more films, spin offs and games. The Alien Vs Predator franchise as a separate franchise was an attempt to take two dying franchises, and keep them alive, and it was successful proven by the two films and remade games on the next generation consoles.

Film franchises supply security for producers and their money. When they create a film that establishes a fan base, regardless of the film sequel(s), if the audience are attached, they will watch it, because they want closure and to find out what happens to the character they bonded with. Also if you make a film with a director and it is successful, essentially all you have to do is do almost everything the same, but bigger, because you know what the audience, as a fanbase, want to see. We see how important franchise is as a way of making money, because if you look at John Carter, it is just everything not to do. The idea wasn't original, it was essentially Avatar, audiences wanted something new, from a new franchise, and this is why it lost. Although this was seen as the biggest movie loss of all time. That year Disney still made 14 billion dollars from theme parks, movies, merchandise and games. So the biggest movie loss of all time was only a speck thanks to horizontal integration of todays industry. If it wasn't for franchise, the fan bases of films would be a fraction of what they are, and film companies would have destroyed themselves with vertical integration a long time ago.