What If Pre-Sold Franchises Stop Selling?

Properties all over Hollywood are being developed on the premise that they are “pre-sold” to audiences. "Pre-sold" means it's a property most people are already familiar with. Think remakes, reboots, and sequels. Basically anything that has a big opening these days.

Superhero movies are the most obvious example in recent times, but I’m talking about anything you saw being made and you sighed, “Not this again.”

For at least 20 years, the film and TV industry has been placing its bets on these “risk-averse” properties, hoping that the name recognition of the character or franchise will guarantee its commercial success.

I don’t know about you, but I’m pretty sick of seeing the same thing made over and over again. Sure, any movie, franchise or not, has a similar structure or story that you’ve seen somewhere else, repackaged in a different way, but does it have to be quite so obvious as a live-action remake of The Lion King, shot for shot?

As an audience member, being peddled the same characters and story over and over again doesn’t make me feel very smart. It makes me feel like I’m just fifteen bucks to the studio (which I am, but that’s another story) and that the industry is paralyzed by the fear of losing money. It makes me feel like nothing I see at the movies is going to spark my imagination.

I’d rather watch an old movie where there’s at least the chance that something strange will happen, if only because it comes from a different time in history. I love when the studios did something that seems unusual today because they were following their star system rules or being surprised by a new character who isn’t the eighth generation of the same superhero.

Another side effect of the pre-solds is that the sight of what’s playing in theaters makes me just want to go to TV. TV also has quite a few pre-sold properties being peddled, but it’s not quite as much of a pandemic in TV. There’s still some TV made that has new characters, new stories, and makes you want to get to know a new world.

Plus, the long form of TV really serves story and allows for the little moments that are the first to get cut in big-budget blockbusters.

So movies are making me want to do nothing else but watch old movies or TV.

What’s going wrong here??

Someone I was talking to recently said that the studios are out of ideas.

No, it’s not that they can’t think of anything new; it’s just that they’re afraid to finance it without knowing people will see it (and not just the people in the country where it’s being made. For a movie to be profitable, it needs to be an international success, too).

Are movies being made with absolutely insane amounts of money these days? Yes. More than in the past? Sort of, if you adjust for inflation. But movies have always been extravagantly expensive projects, no matter what time in movie history we’re talking about.

So where is this risk-averse studio attitude coming from? Why are we only getting remakes at this specific point in history? Why are studios less likely to spend money on a new thing now more than ever?

Part of it is definitely competition. Cable is basically dead on its feet, but the real issue is the instant access to millions of streaming titles. This is great for (mainstream title) accessibility, but not so great for an industry built on getting people’s butts into theater seats on opening weekend. It’s harder than ever to get someone out of their house and movie theaters are in trouble. Why go out when there’s a bazillion titles available right now on your own computer?

For me, the movie-going – and theater-going – experience is unlike any other and should be preserved, no matter what is available on our devices. There’s nothing like seeing a movie in a theater, the way it was made to be seen.

Okay, so I’m an idealist, but I don’t like watching giant epics on my tiny phone screen. I don’t like seeing the smudges on my computer screen when I’m trying to enjoy a new movie. I want something different, something that surprises me, something that’s immersive in a different way.

To me, going to the movies is all about sparking the imagination and transporting you into a new world. And if anyone says there’s no difference in how much you’ll get out of a movie whether you watch it in a theater or on your phone, they’re just kidding themselves.

That being said, we’re a culture of convenience. We don’t go out of the house easily. But does that mean all movie theaters should close forever? That we can just let this experience be lost in time?

When I was in film school, one of my professors asked our class if we thought movie theaters would cease to exist. The class debated and there were good arguments for both sides, but in the end, we agreed that movie theaters would always exist. They needed to. The experience is fundamentally different than the streaming experience, and therefore there was a need and place for them in society. They serve a different, event-based function. Movies theaters, we agreed, would always exist.

However, that was when we were still getting some movies worth putting in theaters. And that’s the major problem today.

By trading on known properties in an attempt to be risk-averse, they’re actually placing their entire model of distribution and exhibition at risk. Yes, the risk of bringing in an audience to a known property is lower based on the rational argument that more people will immediately recognize, and allegedly connect with, a property that they’ve heard of before.

But now, audiences are – or at least, I am – at a point where seeing a risk-averse property actually makes me less inclined to see the movie. Do you see the irony here? The movies being financed to are meant to decrease risk, but that’s actually become the very thing which is stopping audiences from going to theaters. Why go to a theater if there isn’t going to be anything new there?

All we want from theaters is something exciting, different, enjoyable, and something that takes us on a new adventure. It should spark our imagination. Instead, the goal is to get us to reach for our wallets and buy all the affiliated franchise merchandise.

There’s a simple fix to this, but it’s not the one that studios will want to hear. The fix is to go back to writing films that aren’t trading on known characters, but marketing them as big films just like these known properties are receiving. Basically, we need to go back to the 1980s, when new films were being written and then marketed as an exciting new adventure you haven’t seen before. That’s what will bring people back to theaters. They won’t go there if it’s something they’ve also watched in various forms on their laptop or phone.

The theater needs to be made into an exclusive space again if exhibitors want to have a chance in the current industry climate. I don’t think movie theaters will ever be as big as they once were in our history, but they must not be completely obliterated just because we’re used to instant access to media, either. A theater experience is not as instant, but it has its own immersive qualities that make it special. If we just let those spaces die, where will a movie have its best chance to be watched? In your bed on your lap as you’re falling asleep or on your phone while you’re on a plane?

Yes, I’m an idealist about movies and I always have been, but theaters are in more danger right now than they ever have been of becoming totally extinct. This will not be an easy battle, but I do not want to see what has happened to drive-in theaters (which once had over 4,000 locations in the United States and is now down to about 320). Things are changing in the film industry, but theaters are where movies are made to be seen. Let’s not lose them.

Are we all going to be watching movies on our laptops tonight? Yes. All I’m saying is let’s not give up on the option to see a movie in the space where they’re designed to be seen.

Ultimately, if a pre-sold movie stops selling, and for me, that’s exactly what’s happened, then something needs to change so that people will want to go back to the theaters again. Let’s get creative and see some new stories take the screen. It’s what movies have always been about: taking us to new places and showing us things we never imagined.

I can imagine Spider-Man. I’ve seen him a million times. I love him. But what else have you got? I want to meet someone new. That’s what’s going to get me into that theater seat.