10 Reasons Why 2016's Blockbusters Are Failing
7. The Cinematic Universe Isn’t A Sure Thing
Ever since Marvel assembled the Avengers, everyone and their monkey has been trying to retrofit their movie franchises into cross-continuity ‘cinematic universes’, shared worlds in which ostensibly unrelated films can act as de facto sequels to one another.
Universal are trying to combine their old school monster franchises, and Legendary Pictures are manoeuvering their King Kong property into an eventual collision with Godzilla. Hanna-Barbera want to make a cartoon feature where all of their familiar faces - Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, The Jetsons etc - join forces. There was even talk for a while about combining the next 21 Jump Street flick with the Men In Black franchise, for some reason.
What Hollywood doesn’t seem to understand is that the Marvel Cinematic Universe works because it was carefully constructed over years from a blueprint that led to the Avengers and beyond, organically drumming up interest in each subsequent movie.
The Avengers wasn’t a billion dollar hit because Joss Whedon is a precious snowflake (although he totally is), but because audiences had become invested in the characters and wanted to see them all onscreen together.
Just because Batman Vs. Superman: Dawn Of Justice (god, what a crappy title) introduced us to the idea that the Dark Knight and the Man Of Steel lived across the bay from one another doesn’t automatically mean double the box office, as proven by the relatively underwhelming takings for the movie this year.
Had they given us a couple of Man Of Steel movies and a couple of Batfleck outings before hurling them at one another, we’d have been more engaged in their contrived reasons for twatting each other in the face.
Next year’s Justice League will feature a thrown together cast of characters, just like the Avengers (ironically, given that the Avengers were originally an attempt by Marvel to rip off the Justice League). In this case, however, audiences will be meeting half of them for the first time. Again, there’s no investment.
This idea of the cinematic universe as a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow is making everybody greedy, desperate for some of that Marvel money. The trouble is, greed makes for shortsighted movie-making by executive committee. Historically speaking, you don’t get good - or financially successful - movie franchises out of studio mandate and meddling from suits.