Road to Video Content Success Isn’t a Big Secret

Content Insider #941 – New Old

By Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com

“What I am about to tell you sounds crazy, but you have to listen to me. Your very lives depend on it. You see, this isn’t the first time.” – Cage, “Edge of Tomorrow,” Warner Bros. 2014

Jason Blum, Blumhouse Productions, is seriously rethinking his organization’s whole film planning process after M3GAN 2.0 bombed in the theater this summer with measly ticket sales of only $17M worldwide on its opening weekend.

Something went seriously wrong, and he wasn’t trying to sweep it under the rug.

The sequel had everything going for it.

M3GAN brought in $180M against a $12M budget.  

Both were horror and quasi-humor films which by all accounts should have been a real attraction.

Horror typically attracts seats in seats when there is chaos and uncertainty around you and that’s never been truer than how the US government’s actions have sc***ed up the global economy and state of affairs.

And gawd knows we all need a little humor in these times.

Blum isn’t doing a whole lot of finger pointing, he’s just trying to figure out WTF happened and how they can correct the company’s course going forward.

Film franchises, sequels, prequels, spin-offs, remakes, reboots and adaptations are something the film industry has banked on since the first US indoor movie theater – Vitascope Hall – opened in 1896 in New Orleans.

Universal Studios was built on a solid series of 46 monster films – Dracula, Frankenstein, Invisible Man, Wolf Man and others – and they’ve broadened their genre offerings (and success) on that foundation.

Disney is wallowing in great franchises – Marvel Cinematic, Moana, Star Wars, Toy Story, Pirates of the Caribbean, Monster Inc., Inside Out, Muppets, Mickey Mouse, Mulan, and the list goes on.

Franchise films have a proven track record of attracting large audiences to theaters and that          continues to hold true of all of the follow-ons that were/are opening this year –  Captain America: Brave New World, Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, Jurassic World Rebirth, From The World of John Wick: Ballerina, The Fantastic Four: First Steps, Wicked For Good, The Accountant 2, Superman, 28 Years Later, How to Train Your Dragon, Zootopia 2, Wolf Man, The Black Phone 2, Tron: Ares, Avatar: Fire and Ash, Predator: Badlands, and more.

Even home streaming services know the value of franchise projects.

While the chief industry disruptors – Netflix and Amazon – have little attachment to Hollywood’s golden age, they do understand the audience’s connection to sequels/prequels/spin-offs.

Amazon paid $153M for the first season of Fallout based on the post-apocalyptic video game, launched The Lord of the Rings: The Rings of Power Tolkien adaptation, spent $1B for the James Bond franchise, and paid $8.45B for MGM Studios.  

Netflix has consistently spent about $18B annually to attract A-list writers and actors to develop films that will attract and satisfy the organization’s more than 300M global subscribers.   

The company and its creative partners lean heavily on the firm’s patented data technology to read the tea leaves that will help them create, store and deliver films that will appeal to viewers based on past viewing interest.

This enables the creatives to develop films that will interest their subscribers across a wide spread of genre that are often sequels, prequels, spin-offs, reboots and transmedia stories based on novels, video games and related topics.

This audience study recently enabled them to double down on their global anime strategy which has moved from a viewer niche to a powerhouse content category.

As movie theaters struggle to survive and thrive, sequels, prequels and reboots represent a major portion of the box office revenue.

This year was all lined up to be a rousing year for the movie houses to finally rake it in because of a killer line-up of sequels, prequels, reboots.

And they were safe bets for studios because the films come with pre-existing audiences, established characters and a reduced financial risk because of the original stories’ success.   

Many of them you almost think you grew up with – Fast & Furious (11 films), Jurassic Park (7), Terminator (6), Star Trek (13), Planet of the Apes (10), X-Men (14), Marvel Cinematic Universe (37),  The Mummy (9), Superman (11), Spider Man (16), Batman (19),Wizardly World (Harry Potter) (11), Star Wars (12), James Bond (27), Godzilla (28), and King Kong (13).   

And while Jaws only had four direct projects in their series, the 50-year-old thriller paved the way for a ton of storyline spinoffs like Sharknado, Megalodon, and other scary fantasy stories that demonized sharks as mindless killers.

A little public service note here – it ain’t so.  We encounter them often while scuba diving and they’re just magnificently beautiful animals to see in their element that deserves to be respected/protected. 

You’re not on their menu … trust us.

It has been great to watch some of the franchises over time as storylines and film production technology make them even better to view with each new segment.

When Godzilla (Gojira in Japan) first appeared on the screen in 1954 he was a rather awkwardly cute prehistoric monster that was awakened by all of the nuclear testing going on.  

But with each new film Godzilla gained credibility because the technology filmmakers used got better making him look, feel, act more ferocious, more real.

And when King Kong first appeared on the big screen even with the best use of new special effects including stop-motion animation, he was a rather ragged giant ape.

But when he finally joined up with Godzilla in 2021 he credibly looked like a real but very ticked off ape because you could see the individual hairs on his body and his actions looked like a very real – albeit menacing – ape that you didn’t want to bump into in a dark alley.

The other franchise we felt improved thanks to technological production improvements was Planet of the Apes.

When the first film appeared in 1968, the storyline – prejudice human arrogance, power dynamics – were very good but even the acting of Charleton Heston, Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter couldn’t make the primates look like anything more than humans in a gorilla. orangutan or chimp costume doing their darndest to look/act like the real mammals.

But by 2024, special effects creativity had so improved that their movements, their eyes and their individual hairs looked so real that you forgot there was a human involved, and the primates were real primates.

The same has been true for almost every new release of the franchise films.

People actually got excited to see what John Wick, Rocky, The Terminator, Jason Bourne, Mad Max, Rambo, Shaft, Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise), Indie Jones, and James Bond and the other good guys/bad guys were going to do in the way of action and stunts to make you gasp and want to come back for more.

The ongoing sagas are not only fun to watch, especially if you’ve followed them through the years or did a crash catchup in preparation for the new release, but they are a fantastic study of the lens, camera, lighting, scenery and post-production technology and tool advances through the years.

Watching earlier releases of Alien or Predator and the latest films – especially if you’re in the biz – and you marvel at how creepier, scary and ominous they are in the latest project, even though they scared the crap out of you when they first came on the screen.

No wonder people want to come back for more!

For the film and streaming video industries, it’s all about earning and retaining the trust of fans and viewers – but not overloading them – so the studios and production organizations can continue to mine and monetize their leading IP.

While there are some signs of diminishing returns, studios, theaters and streaming services know that sequels, prequels and spin-offs continue to attract and retain audiences.

Whether the project is destined for the big screen, the home screen or a combination of screens, they know that movies and shows that are based on existing IP are the best opportunities to ensure their investments will produce strong audience engagement and profits.   

As a result, we can probably expect a significant increase in the number of franchise films/shows around the world as individuals and countries move through uncertain times.

For example, according to Ampere Analytics. two years ago, sequels made up less than five percent of the movies and shows released yet they captured 45.8 percent of the cinema box office and new subscriptions Last year, the company noted that more than two-thirds of the top 100 movies and shows were based on existing ideas and IP.

Despite the overall downturn in scripted content, commissions based on existing franchises have maintained a steady share of about 20 percents of the greenlighted projects.

Betting on a sure thing is the best way for studios and streamers to drive viewership and sustain fan interest.

This is especially true of linear TV networks that are faced with shrinking audiences and need to maintain successful projects like Law & Order, FBI, Chicago Fire/Med/P.D., Grey’s Anatomy, The Simpsons, The Walking Dead, Matlock, Elsbeth, as well as streaming shows like Squid Games, Strange Things, Ironheart, Sandman, The Bear, The Last of Us, Reacher, Mobland, and Foundation.

To explain the weighted shift, Cage explained in Edge of Tomorrow, “I’m going to tell you a story. It’s going to sound ridiculous. The longer I talk, the more rational it’s going to appear.”

Of course, Netflix learned that early on, which is why they adapt their franchises in 22 distinct markets.

They and the other smart streamers reduce their risk by focusing on localized versions while greenlighting and extending franchises that successfully engage with consumers.

But there are still studios and struggling streamers that repeat what Cage said, “I don’t know. We’ve never gotten this far.”

Maybe the best recommendation they can get is to simply follow Rita’s advice, “We should just reset.”

Adaption and adoption are the best assurances studios, theaters and streaming services have to continue growing and profiting in an unsure market.

And don’t worry … Blumhouse may be bruised, but they’ll get back on track.

Andy Marken – andy@markencom.com – is an author of more than 900 articles on management, marketing, communications, industry trends in media & entertainment, consumer electronics, software and applications. An internationally recognized marketing/communications consultant, he has a broad range of technical and industry expertise–especially in storage, storage management and film/video production fields. He also has an extended range of relationships with business, industry trade press, online media and industry analysts/consultants.