5 Varying Lengths Of Story-telling In Film

4. Four Films

First and foremost, I believe that a story should have an outline, a plan. Even if conjured as the franchise extends, it should have ways of tying back to earlier films. It should be a cohesive, artistic creation. Four films in a franchise, straight away, fails to give a sense of structured story-telling. Four films suggest a series that continued to plod along until it became horrible enough to cut off completely. Other times, it€™s the tragic tale of a great story being extended for financial benefit. An example of this is €˜The Bourne Legacy€™, extending a solid and successful series even without the title character. The movie added little to the broader picture and only dampened the Bourne tale. The 90€™s Batman films lacked continuity and direction. Actors changing left, right and center, as well as directors, meant that there was no connection to draw between the films. Harvey Dent went from an African American to a Caucasian man in the space of two films, when he returned to the series as Two Face in €˜Batman Forever€™. €˜The Pirates of the Caribbean€™ franchise will continue to be popular. Yet while the first three are solid entries that gave birth to and made the world fall in love with the iconic Jack Sparrow, the fourth film seems to extend the series purely because it can. Further installments have been confirmed, yet it€™s hard to see how the future of the series can be as tight story-wise as the first three. It will, however, continue to make money. A lot of it. And that is at the center of the problem these over-extended franchises have. It€™s hard to reject the allure of success at the box office.