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chickenwing @lemmy.film

Indiana Jones and Flash flopped hard. Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?

For the last few years franchise movies like star wars, marvel, etc. made money regardless of quality. However now it seems like audiences are being choosier when it comes to these kinds of tentpole releases. I've seen some people online say that the movie/theater industry is losing people in general but I don't think that's the case.

Super Mario and spiderverse made a lot of money. And Oppenheimer, Barbie, and Dune seem to be tracking well. I think the problem is that people are getting sick of the same old stuff and need more than just a brand name to go to the theater. What do you you think?

135 comments

  • I don't think it has anything to do with being franchise films. Studios just need to make good films and people will see them.

    Spider-Man made 600m WW so far which isn't too shabby. That has to contend with superhero fatigue as well as franchise fatigue.

  • There are only two good indy movies and that's raiders and the last crusade.

    Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new.

    Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book.

    Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable.

    • I felt compelled to reply, don't really know why but here it goes:

      "There are only two good indy movies and that's raiders and the last crusade."

      Temple of Doom also has it's charm, many of the most iconic Indy moments, beautiful cinematography and boldness to do things differently. It's the weakest of the original trilogy but also the most interesting one to watch.

      "Anything else was crap and crap Indiana Jones movies are nothing new."

      Yeah the two new ones are kinda crap. It's an interesting duo as the Dial of Destiny is technically a better movie of the two but at the same time it's the most indifferent and forgettable. Crystal Skull was crap but at least it had some original ideas and fit the original concept of rejuvenating the style of pulp/adventure literature of the era it's set in. DoD was mostly a collection of recycled cliches and unnecessary cameos with few interesting ideas that were forgotten after being presented.

      "Dune and so on are objectively good movies even though they play the hobbit tactic with dune releasing only half the book."

      True, Dune was great. But knowing the source material I am happy they chose to film it in parts. I actually think it could have been a trilogy.as there is so much going on in the original book.

      "Why people like avengers and marvel and these movies I have no idea. Only a select few of these movies are watchable."

      That's one of the great mysteries of life. Although it probably helps that they were a pop culture phenomenon even before the movies 🙂

  • You're making the assumption that, since the pandemic ended, people actually want to go to the theater to see movies. They demonstrably do not. People will not go to see a movie they're interested in in the theater; they will only go to the theater to see a movie they are absolutely driven to see immediately. It has to have huge visual spectacle and be truly worthy of their time to waste the time and money to sit in a theater, which no one seems to want to do anymore. It has to be something that needs to be seen on a large screen.

    I'm sure Dune will do well later this year and there's been plenty of movies recently that did fine in theaters. But there's going to be plenty more along the way that fall by the wayside despite the fact that they would have been tent pole pictures with guaranteed box office in past years. But people aren't going to show up for things like Indiana Jones or Flash after major failures previously in both of those series.

  • It’s annoying that some people are so small-minded that they only think one style of filmmaking counts as “real cinema”. Just like there are different genres of film (like comedy, horror, drama, etc.), there’s room for different styles of film as well.

    Too many people seem to think that just because two things can be projected on a screen, it’s reasonable to compare them. Some also believe that one kind of film is objectively better than another.

    No. Neither of those things are true.

    Films provide room for a wide range of creativity, whether they’re loud, big-budget extravaganzas with broad appeal, or quiet, intimate, narrowly focused films intended for a smaller audience - or something in between.

    I don’t understand why there’s even an argument about which type of film is best. If you’re like me, you enjoy several different things, depending on your mood.

  • Could this be the beginning of the end for franchise films?

    We can only hope.

    'The Flash' and Other Mediocre Movies Won't Stop Superhero Fatigue - Variety. Fifteen years (since Iron Man), for the love of Stan! As Scorsese said, "…that’s not cinema…the closest I can think of them…is theme parks."

    Fun fact: did you know that the (then) new distribution strategy invented for the iconic film The Godfather gave rise of the Blockbuster (and thus "franchise movies") and the near-death of auteur cinema?

    !moviesnob@lemmy.film

    • @kingmongoose7877 Of course Scorsese's mastery, knowledge and love of movies is matched by few and surpassed by none. But I do find it amusing that the he criticises lowbrow superhero genre movies when every third film he makes has a bunch of Irish or Italian guys telling each other to fuhgeddaboudit, then shooting each other in the head. (Yes, I'm exaggerating, but not by that much.)

      My point? There are bad, mediocre and good superhero movies, just as there are bad, mediocre and good gangster movies. And every so often there are great genre movies, like The Godfather, or - for my money - Logan (which I think deserved Oscar nominations for picture, director, adapted screenplay, actor, supporting actor and supporting actress).

      And, basically, you just need a lot of movies to be made before a masterpiece is produced. For how many decades were westerns a popular genre? Were directors complaining about the guns'n'horses theme parks in the 1950s? Most westerns that were made over that time have been forgotten, but the great ones like Shane or Unforgiven live on. In fifty years most superheroes will have been forgotten, but a handful will live on.

      To address @chickenwing 's post more directly: I remember reading articles a few years ago about how the age of the movie star was dead (Tom Cruise being cited as one of a few exceptions), and that the age of the franchise/brand (Marvel, Star Wars, Pixar) had arrived. If the age of the franchise is dying, what will rise to take its place?

  • The only movie I was willing to see was the Mario movie and I still ended up torrenting it. Why should I go to a public theater, get ripped off at the ticket box and the food counter for some mild entertainment? Especially when I can cook up an entire meal at home and eat it in front of the TV.

    Better food, more comfortable, private setting and most importantly, Cost effective. If you want to get people like me to go to a theater, the incentive better be worth it. I won’t open my wallet otherwise.

    • Plus I can pause to pee, vape away, set the volume on my surround sound exactly where I want, etc. And my 84” 4K DV/HDR+ OLED may not be a gigantic silver screen, but I enjoy it. Combined with 120TB of storage for Plex, I’m more than happy to wait for the bluray remux.

      I used to fucking ADORE going to the movies - but nowadays, it needs to be a spectacular spectacular. Last movie I saw in the theater was Top Gun 2, and it was worthy.

  • super mario is like 40 years old and spiderman is even older, so I'm not sure they really count as "something new" as far as franchises go.

135 comments