“Does Hollywood Have a Sequel Problem?”
From Variety yesterday:
“Sequelitis,” the entertainment industry equivalent of the Zika virus, has gripped major studios. Its symptoms include sluggish box office, feverish critical take downs and disdainful social media reactions.
At least, that’s what analysts and executives are telling themselves after “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Out of the Shadows” became the latest sequel to disappoint. It follows a long line of follow-ups and spinoffs that flopped or failed to live up to their predecessors — a group of underachievers that includes “X-Men: Apocalypse,” “Alice Through the Looking Glass” and “Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising.”
Why would a downturn in the sequel business be a problem?
Franchises are the straw that stirs a studio’s drink. As the domestic theatrical business slows, the one area of growth is the foreign box office. To that end, sequels tend to travel, playing particularly well in markets such as China that have become a critical source of revenue.
Franchise films also lead to greater merchandising opportunities. Characters from sequels are more likely to pop up in ads for cars or fast food. They’re the inspiration for toy lines, t-shirts and theme park rides. Studios are small parts of sprawling media conglomerates. Their value isn’t measured in box office. They exist to create intellectual property that can pollinate the consumer products, television and other divisions of the Comcasts and Time Warners of the world.
To put things in historical perspective, if a studio were to consider greenlighting a sequel in the decade of the 80s, they would have done so with the expectation that the movie would generate at least 60% of the original. Over the last decade, that number has changed in a big way in that studios now look to sequels to make more — sometimes significantly so — than the original. As I noted in this post — Hollywood’s New Four Quadrant Movie Model — the Fast and Furious franchise went from the original movie grossing $207M in worldwide box office revenues to Furious 7, the 6th sequel, generating $1.5B — that’s billion — dollars.
Clearly if audiences were to spurn sequels, which feed Hollywood’s addiction to franchises, that would create a messy withdrawal experience for the industry. But is there any evidence of a downturn? From the Variety article:
Sequels that have outperformed previous film(s), since January 2015:
Star Wars: The Force Awakens
Jurassic World
Captain America: Civil War
Furious 7
Pitch Perfect 2
Minions
Hotel Transylvania 2
Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice
Mad Max: Fury Road
Sequels that fell short:
X-Men: Apocalypse
Alice Through the Looking Glass
Spectre
Kung Fu Panda 3
The Divergent films
The Hunger Games films
London Has Fallen
Magic Mike XXL
Zoolander 2
Paul Blart: Mall Cop 2
God’s Not Dead 2
My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2
Neighbors 2: Sorority Rising
Barbershop: The Next Cut
The Huntsman: Winter’s War
Ride Along 2
Ted 2
The Woman in Black 2
Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation
Avengers: Age of Ultron
Insidious: Chapter 3
Sinister 2
Taken 3
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Road Chip
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials
There’s nothing determinative here and there have been breathless trade headlines in the recent past whenever a sequel opens poorly just as the new Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle offering has done this weekend. However you can be sure whenever a sequel underperforms, sphincters tighten just a bit in executive office chairs from Burbank to Culver City.
For the Variety article, go here.
For more on this subject, here is a Hollywood Reporter article from yesterday: Hollywood’s New Problem: Sequels Moviegoers Don’t Want.