It's time to stop making commercials for commercials.
As trends rise and fall in Hollywood in response to the
levels of money that can be pumped into them, so to have we seen the Cinematic
Universe morph into something new as a result of Marvel Studios kicking off an
arms race among its competition to replicate a profitably attributed to more
factors than most executives seem to want to allow thinking power for.
The examples that I have covered of Hollywood’s chase for
Cinematic Universes are far from the only examples to crop up within the last 6
or so years, nor are they the only high profile failures of said trend. I do
however believe that they more or less run the gamut of exactly how and where
they can go horribly wrong, existing almost as dark mirrors to the ones that
have done it right.
Universal attempted to capitalize on the legacy of their
“Universal Monsters” with a film rebooting one of the most popular and
mainstream entries of said franchise more concerned with establishing baseline
mythology for properties with contradictory mythologies and world building
minutia that gets stretched and broken for the sake of storytelling and
filmmaking even in the good crossover movies. All of that is to say nothing of
the movie itself being and pushing a model of storytelling more suited to
stylized action faire in the vein of superhero movies rather than push the what
makes the series an icon of horror to begin with.
For all of these reasons plus many more, it wouldn’t be
incorrect to believe that just about everything about “The Mummy,” as executed,
was horrendously ill-conceived. While I may personally hold that view to be
substantially true however, it’s undeniable that such a claim can be highly
contested by the reality that “The Conjuring” franchise is somehow 5 movies in
with a moderately positive batting average, composed of a variety of films that
are only tangentially related to the primary two titular films and receiving a
regular degree of critical and commercial success.
Paramount’s continued mismanagement of the “Transformers”
license, thinking they can treat these hulking brutes as solo superheroes
across a canvas of human history sounds utterly bonkers even by the standards
of the franchise’s handling thus far but how bad of an idea can you truly judge
these solo spinoffs to be when “Fast & Furious’” “Hobbes & Shaw”
spinoff has landed the director of John Wick to direct 2 of the most
charismatic action leads currently working?
That line of logic can even be extended to “Legend of the
Sword’s” ludicrous ambitions, when you consider some of the best things done
with the “X-Men” franchise in the last 5 years are “Deadpool,” “Legion,” and “Logan,”
which are all intimate character driven narratives that couldn’t be more
tonally disconnected despite sharing the same vague through line of super power
mutation and its impact on society.
That handling in and of itself can further connect to other
high profile failures in terms of contrasting success, such as why and how “Legion”
and “The Gifted” work, while “The Dark Tower” floundered.
All of the failures have, however, finally begun to take
their toll, as fewer appear to be popping up as quickly over the horizon and
even the MCU seems to have anticipated the waning of the trend, ready to shift
gears into smaller scale projects following the release of “Infinity War’s”
2019 follow up.
While Hollywood has repeatedly shown itself to be opposed to
learning lessons, it’d be really nice if they could at least hold on to these
takeaways as they move forward, as the continued success of the MCU and the
apparent bearings that Warner Bros. appears to have finally found with its DC
films now that Zack Snyder is out of the picture prove that the model still has
a ways to go before being fully kicked to the curb.
Crossovers Enhance, Not Detract
The smash success of “The Avengers” was born from the demand
to see beloved superheroes teaming up to fight the larger than life threats
they’ve been famous for fighting off as a team in their source material and the
movie worked because it took several well established franchises and ostensibly
produced a single mega sequel side story to all of them without hijacking their
main entries.
Meanwhile, The most critical acclaim and box office success for
DC films came about when they dropped the tight threads of the Cinematic
Universe and instead shifted focus to the individual quality of standalone
films set within unique franchise’s because weaving a multitier epic using
needlessly dense comic book mythology carried out by characters and versions of
icons that audiences at large didn’t know or care about with a directorial
vision largely slammed at worst and polarizing at best almost sunk the entire
franchise before it could properly launch.
The crossover is a fun bonus that can create some of the
most memorable moments in fiction if done right but the reality is that the
foundations it’s meant to support have to be fully functional, on their own, which
is why if you’re going to set up a Cinematic Universe, it helps to…
Let the Crossover’s Appeal be Worthwhile
A group of unique characters with different outlooks and
methodologies coming together to tackle a complex threat in need of their
varied skill sets carries visual and storytelling potential that’s through the
moon.
What was Dracula going to do in the same room as
Frankenstein’s monster and the Mummy in a series that was apparently going to
also include the Hunchback of Notre Dame and the Phantom of the Opera? And what
did any of that have to do with the story that launched the universe?
Having a spinoff operate under the same framework of the narrative
that birthed it fundamentally defeats the purpose of expansion. If you’re going
to have spinoffs, make sure they can function as distinct entities in their own
right. The best way to achieve that end and gauge the mileage of the franchise
would be remembering that above all else…
Individual Chapters are not Complete Stories
Cinematic Universe’s took off by selling people on the
promise of a grander mythology through the telling of a strong narrative, not
telling a mythology with the promise of a potentially worthwhile story to follow
eventually.
This is far from a new phenomenon in Hollywood but the
practice of selling stories as commercials for future stories has taken on a
perverse new extreme with full blown series serving as commercials for future
stories in said series while advertising other series’ that do the same
advertisement.
Just tell and sell the story. If it’s worth follow up, the
almighty dollar will tell you how long.
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