10 Reasons Huge Movies Keep Flopping
8. Franchise Fatigue Is Real
Folks have been discussing the notion of "franchise fatigue" for years, typically in relation to the Marvel Cinematic Universe and superhero films as a whole.
But on a broader level, there's an argument to be made that the franchises that were once Hollywood's bread-and-butter have since become stale and lost the interest of general audiences.
Take the MCU for starters, which has seemingly lost its ability to consistently churn out $1 billion movies, in part due to the relatively mediocre quality of the post-Avengers: Endgame content, and also general exhaustion with the sheer amount of MCU content produced when including the Disney+ shows.
Elsewhere, Fast X undeniably suffered from the series running out of fresh ideas in recent entries; Transformers: Rise of the Beasts failed to rouse much interest, and The Little Mermaid just felt like yet another watchable-yet-forgettable live-action Disney remake.
As for Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny? It's easy to piece together how mixed reviews and the fact that the franchise simply isn't culturally relevant to Gen Z may have proven to be its undoing. (The previous entry, Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, released in 2008, leaving a 15-year gap where Indy wasn't at the forefront.)
But worst of all must surely be The Flash, which despite initial buzz and the return of Michael Keaton as Batman, illustrated how thoroughly over the DCEU general audiences are, enough that Blue Beetle (now retroactively the beginning of James Gunn's new DCU) and Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom both seem destined to bring the series to an end in financially calamitous fashion.
And again, even quality can't always help - Mission: Impossible - Dead Reckoning Part One has underperformed in part because it's a well-crafted yet largely more-of-the-same offering, its fortunes unfortunately contrasting with the freshness of Barbie and Oppenheimer.
Hollywood - particularly Disney - being forced to rely less on rehashing mainstay franchises could be a good thing for the long-term creative health of the industry.