When the time comes for a film franchise to end, that’s it. It’s gone forever and there is little to no chance of it coming back. Some time passes and then a studio decides that it’s a good idea to revive this long-dormant franchise, only for it to become clear that it was better off left alone, maybe even dead.
While this is the fate of many franchises, I feel it’s best exemplified by films such as the Star Wars sequel trilogy that turned a lot of hardcore fans away in under five years, especially by the way it handled the beloved characters from the original films. The sequel trilogy may be over but the effects of what happened are no doubt still being felt, with any new Star Wars- related content not even getting half the attention it would have generated had it come out before The Force Awakens.
Then we have the Terminator. That managed to have two classic sci-fi films in the 1980s and 90s, but once the new millennium began each film seemed to decline in quality, and given how people reacted to Terminator: Dark Fate I don’t know if I’d have much hope of another film coming out.
Another franchise that’s unfortunately fallen into this trap is Toy Story. First it had three films where the third had the rare achievement of being considered great. It was then left in perfect condition… only for Toy Story 4 to come along and while most people liked it, I think I saw it as unnecessary. I wasn’t the biggest fan of Toy Story 3 but it does make me wonder why Pixar thought it was worthwhile adding another film to a story that felt as if it had reached its natural end. This was followed by the spin-off film Lightyear that didn’t even look like Toy Story and I bet didn’t feel like Toy Story. Now we hear Disney is looking to make Toy Story 5 – I don’t know what that will look like, but perhaps it will prove that the films should have ended with 3 and the franchise found a way to survive on the occasional TV special.
Then there’s Home Alone with two classic films, a third one that most people didn’t like and then the franchise was relegated to a TV film or streaming service. Let me reiterate that for you – despite best efforts, a Home Alone film has not been on a cinema screen since 1997, even more shocking when you consider the heights it reached just a few years earlier. Maybe shocking isn’t the right word, it’s just sad.
At first it may appear that a franchise needs two or three successful entries before being at risk of this, but I don’t think that’s plausible. A franchise with uneven quality is just as susceptible to this. An example of an uneven franchise would be Men In Black where the first one is viewed as a classic, the second one, while not as good, has its fans and the third was much better than It had any right to be and left the series in a good place. And then that was ruined by Men In Black: International, a film that lacked everything (including the two leading actors) that made the previous films work as well as they did.
It’s clear that no franchise is safe from this, even those that are brought back with what looks like the best of intentions. I’m thinking of the last three films in the Halloween franchise. At first it looked like the mistakes of the past would be undone. Michael and Laurie would no longer be related, there would be no supernatural reason for Michael to kill and most of it all, it would establish another continuity (the third in the franchise) where only the first film was relevant and the sequels were pushed aside.
On paper it sounded like it had potential and was a good way to get back to the fundamentals of the franchise. But while 2018 did a passable job of doing so, what followed was a film about a mob working its way through a hospital yelling, “Evil Dies Tonight.” I think Halloween is at its best when it’s claustrophobic and has as few characters as possible.
Then there came the one that was meant to bring the story to an end, only to spend far too much time on a character that I don’t think anyone cared much about, while Myers stayed away from most of the film until the climax where it felt like he was there out of necessity. I like to think the trilogy had potential, but any that it had got lost along the way.
Naturally when something like this happens there is damage done to the overall reputation that a franchise had. Yes, the films will still have their favourite entries but because of such films as Toy Story 4 I don’t think I can in good faith call the series flawless. Any of the franchises I’ve mentioned so far can hang onto the films of high quality as much as the people who watch them do, but when there’s a film that stands out for all the wrong reasons suddenly it doesn’t look so good.
If recent cinema history has so many examples of this it’s reasonable to ask, why does it keep happening? The answer is simple – money. Studios need to make money and one easy way of doing that is to bring back something that was popular years before and will guarantee audience interest, regardless of quality.
Something I find rather interesting is that while this problem can spread to just about any genre like sci-fi, horror and even family films, one genre that seems to avoid it is comedy. Despite any popularity they may have had in their heyday, no one is screaming for more National Lampoon, Police Academy, The Hangover or Scary Movie. They may not the best examples but it does show that when it comes to bringing something back, comedy seems to be safer from harm.
Now I’d like to bring your attention to the Spy Kids and Diary of A Wimpy Kid franchises. At first glance these two should have next to nothing in common, but they do. Both had three films that were received well enough and were then put to rest for a few years. And then both were revived with films that failed in every way – and then anything else the franchise puts out is relegated to streaming services like Netflix and Disney+. Going from cinema release to streaming is of course a downgrade, to the point where it feels as if the franchises are being penalised for the failures of their last big screen appearance. Such a move is drastic, effective and a sign of recent sentiment towards them, a sentiment that might not have come into being had these franchises remained trilogies.
I want to consider John Wick as well. When the first film came out, there was no over-the-top action, the story was simple and it didn’t have a long runtime. In short, it was everything other action films at the time weren’t. But as it proved to be successful, sequels were made that slowly eroded everything that made the first one stand out. The fourth one is nearly three hours long. The first film was about a man seeking revenge for the death of his dog and somehow it has come to this. There are plans to do more with the John Wick universe but what is most surprising is just how quickly and easily John Wick sacrificed its uniqueness to become just another action franchise.
I know I’ve spent a lot of time criticising the revival of old franchises, but in the case of Christopher Nolan’s Dark Knight trilogy I think it worked. His vision of Batman was far removed from what came before (Batman and Robin), by wearing its dark and gritty nature with pride. It won over legions of fans and is an entry that is often pointed to as one of the greatest films ever made. The third film may have its flaws and an excessive runtime, but I think the trilogy as a whole deserves credit for doing so well when it could have been worse in a lesser pair of hands – especially considering the mess it had to clean up. It’s just sad that something like this doesn’t happen more often when trying to keep a franchise alive and relevant.
The practice of bringing back old franchises is still going on and is likely to continue. Already Despicable Me 4 is on the way, I know that the franchise has been around for a while, but once this one is done I don’t know where it could go. The answer might be nowhere, not unless Universal come to rely on the minions a little more than they already do.
When all is said and done, reviving an old franchise can either be a success, average or a total failure. It’s an interesting idea to wonder would happen if something is brought back, but personally I think that when a franchise is dead, it should stay dead.