With Thanksgiving just behind us, some people probably forgot the crucial rule of the holiday—don’t eat too much or you’ll make yourself sick. Well, that mantra is good in a number of situations. Too much of a good thing just ruins the experience. And for filmmaker Edgar Wright, he believes too many franchise films has led us to a point where fans are losing their excitement.
Speaking on the Happy. Sad. Confused. podcast, while promoting his new series “Scott Pilgrim Takes Off,” Edgar Wright talked about the current state of the film industry. That is to say, he talked about the overabundance of franchise films and how this surplus of reboots, sequels, prequels, and whatnot (no matter if they’re good or bad) has led to a situation where film fans are just done. The only solution is to take a breather and to have the industry focus on original content for a minute. Forget a million “Star Wars” projects, let’s actually wait to discover the next “Star Wars” from an original voice.
“I know that might sound like hypocrisy if I’m talking about various remakes and stuff. But again, it’s about finding a different angle on something, and maybe those things haven’t been done for 40 years,” Wright explained. “But that’s the thing: I wish some franchises would just kind of have the sense to just take a breather and let people get excited about it again. I feel like there are certain things that I loved that I don’t want to see again, or I don’t want to see them again for a long time. And again, I’m not going to bad mouth anything because it always gets interpreted as sound[bites].”
He added, “We desperately need more new movies. I know IP is the dreaded word but it’s even like finding new things that could be a series. It doesn’t just have to be the same things again and again. I’m not so naive to say everything has to be an original going forwards. Obviously, that would be great and there are a lot of great indies and international cinema. They don’t have the same problem […] international cinema is flourishing. I just think you would hope the studios would put as much investment into original films as they do into the ongoing IP, but also it’s OK to take a break and let something be missed so then you can have a big return, or just think about things that could be franchise starters.”
There’s one franchise that Wright thinks is doing things right—James Bond. Instead of rushing out another reboot after the success of the Daniel Craig films, Barbara Broccoli and the rest of the Bond producers are taking their time and not worried about keeping a new 007 film in theaters every couple of years.
“I think they’re pretty smart actually because they’re willing to kind of put a pause on things to build anticipation. They are the exception,” Wright said. “They are smart enough to put the brakes on and build anticipation so you’ll be excited for the next one. I think one of the problems now is that I wish some films and series that people would understand it’s OK to take a break and build anticipation.”
The filmmaker just wants the Hollywood studios to remember what got them to this place. Before the massive MCU domination and the over-reliance on franchise movies, the film industry was full of new ideas that would end up spawning massive successes. And this happened because studios were willing to take chances on original material.
“That’s just one example but it is something I just feel that people forget ‘Alien’ back in 1979. ‘Terminator’ was an original screenplay back in 1984. ‘Star Wars’ was an original screenplay in 1977,” he explained. “So the fact that the studios don’t want to take those gambles, like, would anybody make ‘The Matrix’ now like the budget was in 1999? It seems unlikely, which is sad. That’s my rant over.”
Though it’s unlikely that a studio would pause its massive IP factory and take a “breather” on a lot of the franchise movies being developed, you can’t deny Wright’s point. And if we’re not careful, there could be a situation where we miss the next “Star Wars” or “Terminator” because we’re too focused on making sure the fifth ‘Thor’ movie gets made.
