Franchise Fatigue: Or Audiences Will Never Get Tired of Watching Big Franchises

Yes, the general consensus in the Hollywood film industry is that big mainstream studios are just squeezing their cash cows as much as possible because the audience loves it. So we see reboots, remakes, live-action adaptations, sequels, and all kinds of sloppy storylines being added or unraveled especially in big franchises because it brings in big bucks.

And sure, there are times when the audience as a collective would also feel fed up with these money-grubbing tactics, something they call "franchise fatigue", and it would show in their box office performances. But why is it that, despite a sequel being bad or obviously just trying to get us to throw our money at them, people actually still show up?

Franchise fatigue, on any given week, may be all too real, but one of its underlying aspects is collective amnesia. What it allows us to forget, each and every time, is that rehashing the same old crap, over and over, and expecting people to show up for it is what Hollywood has done for 40 years. And — news flash! — it works. More often than it doesn’t. And more consistently than originality.

But what’s left out of this equation, too often, is the dynamic that fuels my franchise-fatigue fatigue. Namely: If you’re going to interpret box-office numbers, especially when a movie tanks, as a sign of what the audience rejects, then you can’t do it with a double standard.

Yes, they didn’t want a new “Shaft,” and they didn’t want “Men in Black” with new stars. But here, measured by the numbers, is what they have wanted: the George Lucas “Star Wars” prequels, Disney strip-mining its holy animated catalogue for live-action remakes, the incredibly shoddy dinosaur sequel “Jurassic World”, and “Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice” and “Suicide Squad”.

(Image credit: Krists Luhaers/Unsplash)