9. Sometimes An Ending Is OK
When youre grossing upwards of $500 million per film in a major franchise (thus making a tidy profit plus countless millions in merchandising) ending it can be a pretty depressing thought. Thankfully once you've proven an audience exists for your franchise, having one or two filler movies isn't a big issue. Thats why its increasingly common for the final entry in a long running series to be split into two. Harry Potter, Twilight and now The Hunger Games have their final entry presented in multiple parts to keep audiences coming back one more time. The creative issue here is obvious we end up getting two average films, with the first treading water and dutifully setting up plot points, while the second is a mash of spectacle with little happening on any other level. But ending a franchise with honour isn't a bad thing. Nolan never really planned to make The Dark Knight into a trilogy (which is a key point later on), but when he did he made very clear The Dark Knight Rises was the final part; a move that worked brilliantly. The marketing really pushed it and the film had a real sense of finality that audiences loved the film brought in over a billion dollars. Theres also the simple truth that a trilogy is the ideal set up; it perfectly mirrors the traditional three act structure and hopefully after TDKR success Hollywood will realise it can still be profitable (and good for reputation) to keep entry numbers down.