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Dead franchise/IPs


Tank
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Of all the big franchises we’ve been watching all our lives, which one do you think had been played out and needs to stop?

I’ll go first: James Bond.

Aside from Casino Royale and Skyfall having moments, the modern Bond films have been criminally boring. Classic Bond has a 50/50 score of great films bs awful ones. And while it’s fun to look back at the practical stunts, the franchise is a relic of the Cold War and is so true to its formula that to stray from It feels like a sin, but to stick to it has become stale and boring.

The MI franchise has outdone Bond at every turn to become the spy-thriller franchise dejour. 

Conversely, an old franchise that I think could have a great new lead on life: The Thin Man.

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Batman

I have a feeling a lot of man franchises will get listed here. LOL

I’ll also add in my namesake.

These have, for me at least, gone everywhere they can go. I have so much burnout over them. Maybe it’s like when in classic Hollywood everything was a western (or a pirate film) and then nothing because of audience fatigue. I totally got Cush-lash for superheroes. ;-)

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The Harry Potter franchise. The premise of Fantastic Beasts was a good one, but the movies have been so boring. Newt Scamander is not very interesting and Grindelwald has never been as menacing as Voldemort. Without Harry, Ron, and Hermione they haven't done enough to make people care.

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17 hours ago, Tank said:

Of all the big franchises we’ve been watching all our lives, which one do you think had been played out and needs to stop?

I’ll go first: James Bond.

Aside from Casino Royale and Skyfall having moments, the modern Bond films have been criminally boring. Classic Bond has a 50/50 score of great films bs awful ones. And while it’s fun to look back at the practical stunts, the franchise is a relic of the Cold War and is so true to its formula that to stray from It feels like a sin, but to stick to it has become stale and boring.

The MI franchise has outdone Bond at every turn to become the spy-thriller franchise dejour. 

Conversely, an old franchise that I think could have a great new lead on life: The Thin Man.

Bond is strange in that the series got as far as it did. The series up until Daniel Craig were never box office hits. Each Bond following Connery were caricatures. Which i think is why people have an affinity to Timothy Dalton's and Craig's versions.

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We all love opinions, that’s why we have all been here so long. Opinions are fun… mostly. That said, saying in reference to James Bond that “The series up until Daniel Craig were never box office hits.” is a provably false statement.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1979/

^this is the year Moonraker was released. Moonraker is widely recognized as the worst entry in the Bond franchise (a simple Google search will confirm this with multiple articles referencing it). Moonraker still made it into the top ten films of of 1979, with an approx $70m box office take.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr2605158149/?ref_=bo_frs_table_10

^this is the box office takes of each Bond film. Here even the worst entry has also made it into the top ten earners for the franchise.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/?ref_=bo_nb_bns_secondarytab

^this is the box office takes for all the top franchises, eg. Star Wars, Marvel etc. The James Bond franchise is within the top ten earners, even above the Jurassic Park franchise, at least at the moment (given the Jurassic Park franchise has another entry due this summer).

In fairness, we can point out that the Jurassic Park franchise has only nine films* while the James Bond franchise has twenty-six films*. As such each entry for Jurassic Park has earned a larger share towards its’ franchise’s gross box office take. However that performance doesn’t in turn disqualify the James Bond franchise from a list of all time top earners. The James Bond franchise has consistently produced box office hits which then have allowed the franchise to continue to be financed and marketed over the length of its’ twenty-six film run.

*the word ‘releases’ is better suited here, as astutely noticed by CoLA below.

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1 hour ago, Spider-Man said:

We all love opinions, that’s why we have all been here so long. Opinions are fun… mostly. That said, saying in reference to James Bond that “The series up until Daniel Craig were never box office hits.” is a provably false statement.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/year/1979/

^this is the year Moonraker was released. Moonraker is widely recognized as the worst entry in the Bond franchise (a simple Google search will confirm this with multiple articles referencing it). Moonraker still made it into the top ten films of of 1979, with an approx $70m box office take.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/fr2605158149/?ref_=bo_frs_table_10

^this is the box office takes of each Bond film. Here even the worst entry has also made it into the top ten earners for the franchise.

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/franchise/?ref_=bo_nb_bns_secondarytab

^this is the box office takes for all the top franchises, eg. Star Wars, Marvel etc. The James Bond franchise is within the top ten earners, even above the Jurassic Park franchise, at least at the moment (given the Jurassic Park franchise has another entry due this summer).

In fairness, we can point out that the Jurassic Park franchise has only nine films while the James Bond franchise has twenty-six films. As such each entry for Jurassic Park has earned a larger share towards its’ franchise’s gross box office take. However that performance doesn’t in turn disqualify the James Bond franchise from a list of all time top earners. The James Bond franchise has consistently produced box office hits which then have allowed the franchise to continue to be financed and marketed over the length of its’ twenty-six film run.

It's been a hot minute since I've perused box office mojo since box office takes for movies haven't matter in a couple of years now. I have a friend who is a huge Bond fan, him having read all of the Flemming books, who was surprised to find out that there were I believe two Bond films at the time Casino Royale came out in the adjusted for inflation top 100. I probably should have used the term blockbuster.

 

 

 

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So if a film franchise only has two films in the top 100 all time, inflation adjusted, then it’s fair to question whether or not that franchise can be classed as being made up of blockbusters?

https://www.boxofficemojo.com/chart/top_lifetime_gross_adjusted/?adjust_gross_to=2020

Because, at least according to the most up to date data on Box Office Mojo, the Marvel Cinematic Universe also only has two films on that top 100 list. *my mistake, there are four. Three Avengers films, and Black Panther. This paragraph is a flub. lol

The two films on that list for the James Bond franchise, btw, are Connery films. Which rebuts your original statement’s criteria that “up until Daniel Craig” the Bond films were not hits nor, in fairness as you clarified, blockbusters.

*I have no idea why I care about this. Ima bolt and take the kids to a park.

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We have to remember there was a shift in studio thinking after the PT. When Star Wars comes out of hibernation to crush the BO, and have LOTR finding similar success without a backlog, things changed. IP grabs were always movie fodder, but what studios did, starting in the early 2000s, was to stop spending money on mid-level films. It became low budget acquisition/distribution deals and throwing big money at potential franchises.

Point being, before this, mid level movies that were part of franchises for decades— like Star Trek, Bond, Batman, and a lot of the well known slasher franchises worked on a different principle. Studios knew these movies were profitable, but only if they cost a certain amount. A Bond movie cost X. A Trek movie cost Y. If those costs were not blown, they’d make a profit. They didn’t even care about content. This is why, for example, Insurrection was such a lower quality everything after First Contact. Everybody got paid more, but there wasn’t more money for what was on screen. If they ended up making a huge profit, they might get that formula bumped up— but if they failed (ST Nemesis is a prime example of this), they’d pull back entirely.

So blockbuster or not, these were still tentpole films.

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6 hours ago, Metropolis said:

Refresh my memory. 007 is an MGM property. Back in the 80s and 90s MGM didn't have many franchises to rely on them?

MGM was actually flagging at that point. Their classic library had been sold off, and they tended to make movies of that mid-size I am talking about. Fair amount of them were original too, but they did lack big IP outside of Bond, and the last few Bonds, Brosnan’s last few, didn’t do so great.

Remember too that Bond wasn’t purely owned by MGM. The franchise is still controlled by Eon Studios, the Brocoli/Saltzman company that has held the rights to Bond forever. They made the first deal with United Artists, and when MGM acquired UA in the 80s they paid a premium to keep Bond. Eon are the ones that decided to do the reboot and just like the UA/MGM acquisition, Sony had to make sure Eon was happy. Sony took over in 2004/5 and by the 2006 we had Casino Royale.

 

5 hours ago, The Choc said:

If you go back 20 or so years it wasn't IP that Hollywood was based on. Im not saying they didn;'t matter but it was based much more on star power. 

Well here’s the top 10 of 2000:

1. How the Grinch Stole Christmas (IP/remake)

2. Mission Impossible 2 (franchise)

3. Gladiator (original)

4. Perfect Storm (IP/based on book)

5. Meet the Parents (original)

6. X-Men (IP/intended start of franchise)

7. Scary movie (spoof of franchise)

8: What Lies Beneath (original)

9. Dinosaur (original)

10. Erin Brokovich (based on real events/book)

Like I said, IP was already a major factor, but originals stilL happened. This is right after TPM and is the start of the model studios use now.

Star Power has never not been a part of the occasion. If you’re making an original film at the studio level it’s a requirement. An IP based film is going to have an established star, and new talent. It’s just as true now as it was then. 

 

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Hate to say it...but maybe Star Wars needs to be put out to pasture.

Everything has been lackluster for years now. All the Disney stuff has moments of good stuff but by in large feels like a Disney ride but with a star wars theme. The more things they make the less mystery and magic there is. Like grave robbers over-exhuming a corpse or something.

I'd like a new Escape From LA or something. Don't think Kurt russel would be up to task, but so long as Ryan Gosling grows a sweet mullet I reckon a gay time could be had by all.

 

 

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Maybe more than 20 years! Just seems to me years ago that people in Arnold, Stallone, Gibson were just far bigger stars than movie stars now. Like if in 1991 someone said "Im going to see that new Arnold movie" even if you didn't know about the movie and had seen no commercials for it you'd have a pretty good idea what it was gonna be like. Same goes for comedy, guys like Eddie Murphy, Adam Sandler. Romantic comedies with Julia Roberts and eventually Reese Witherspoon. You put Julia Roberts in a romantic comedy and it was gonna be a hit. She was the brand, like Marvel is the brand now.

The Marvel movies are obviously the biggest thing now but I don't know if any of the guys have drawing power. Like if Chris Evans makes some new action movie and its like "Chris Evans is "Whoever"" Coming Soon! Does that have drawing power? I don't think so. 

That doesnt mean a guy like him doesn;t have value or you don't put him in your movie. You know he will do a good job and give the movie a chance to do well, but just having him doesn't do much for ya.

If you are a wrestling fan its the difference between CM Punk, a top wrestler that any company should love to employ, and Stone Cold Steve Austin. Punk will do a great job and can give you a chance to draw money. Austin guarantees you draw money. 

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Looking at Hemsworth's filmography Im not sure about that. Just go through his non Marvel movies. Ill leave out movies he had small or cameo roles in.

Extraction was a Netflix movie, although it supposedly had good viewership numbers.

Men In Black: International lost money in all likliehood

Bad Times at the El Royale: definitely lost money

12 Strong: Made a profit probably but not much. Grossed 71 mil against a 35 mil budget but when you factor in marketing and the theaters cut it's profit was probably razor thin.

Huntsman: The Winters War: The Hollywood Reporter estimated the film lost 75 mil for the studio

In The Heart of the Sea: Lost money'

 

I mean I could keep going back but outside of Marvel his movies have almost all lost money. Its actually kinda crazy.

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