How Important are Film Franchises for Audiences and Producers?

I believe that film franchises are very important for Audiences and Producers. Audiences have grown more sophisticated and so enjoy more demanding experiences, which is what franchises offer them. As explored in The Sleeper Curve theory, audiences enjoy being able to invest in the development of characters and explore their interpersonal connections. Franchises offer this ability because they can span the development of characters over many films versus a single, one-off film. I know that audiences enjoy more demanding experiences such as franchises because in the last 2 years, majority of the top grossing films at the box office were franchises.

Another reason that franchises are important to audiences is because they allow the audience to go through a journey with the characters. For example in the Harry Potter films, the first film deals with fitting in at a new school. Over the franchise, the situations become more advanced and dramatic, such as in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, not only has to defeat Voldermort, but the rest of the Death Eaters too. This increase in complexity is very appealing to a modern day audience, and can only be done in the detail that the audiences demand by extending a storyline over several films.

One of the things that franchises allow audiences to do is to engage with the story outside of the cinema. After a one-off film has been shown, its appeal weakens because there is no other way of engaging with it. Synergy changes this and allows a film to be sold in many different formats. Things like the Harry Potter Studio Tour allow audiences to experience and engaging the Harry Potter franchise even after the final film was released. This is more appealing to more intelligent modern audiences who are looking for a more engaging experience.

The advantage of franchises for audiences is that it makes the decision of whether to watch a film or not based on the previous film. An example of this would be the Alien franchise. The original Alien was a very successful film and as a result Aliens was even more successful. Aliens was very successful so a lot of people went to see Alien 2. This wasn’t very successful compared to Aliens and so neither was Alien III because people didn’t go to watch it based on Alien 2. This ability to make quick decisions on whether to watch a film or not is very appealing for the audience.

Also there are many reasons to why franchises are important to audiences, there are many disadvantages. Because film franchises are popular, more film franchises are being produced than new film ideas. 16 of the Top 20 grossing films at the box office in 2014 where film franchises. This is not because audiences don’t want to see new films, the option to do so just isn’t there. This reduces the creativity in the film industry, which is bad for audiences.

Also film producers are beginning to insult the intelligence of the audience. One of the biggest abusers of this is Michael Bay who directly copied the footage used in the film The Island and edited it into the final cut of Transformers and assumed that audiences wouldn’t notice. This is becoming a more regular occurrence in cinema. Another assumption is that audiences are not clever enough to watch a more complex film and are only able to watch the same film structure repeatedly. This is not the case however, and many audiences would prefer to watch a more complex film if they had the choice. Interstellar for example is a very challenging film, yet it grossed $1billion at the box office and is still a popular film.