| Main > Everything Else |
| Aliens, Terminator, Robocop, Predator franchises... why no new good films? |
| (1/7) > >> |
| shponglefan:
The original Alien and Terminator films were great and followed by arguably superior sequels. The original Predator and Robocop movies were also great, albeit followed up by not-so-great sequels. However, since then there really hasn't been anything done that well with any of these franchises. The Terminator and Alien franchises have become a large mess ranging from mediocre entries to outright garbage. 2010's Predators was okay, but nothing special. 2018's The Predator was far worse. And following Robocop 2, that franchise went PG-13 for some reason with both Robocop 3 and the 2014 reboot following suite. It's not like great action/sci-fi isn't possible or that older franchises can't be given a new of life. Batman Begins proved it's possible to resurrect a franchise fallen into mediocrity. 2012's Dredd proved that a modern gritty sci-fi/action flick can be done with the similar feel as the 80's greats. Heck, even Rambo of all things got a shot of new life with the 2008 film. Is it too much to ask for just one decent modern film from any of these franchises? |
| Vigo:
I think the simple answer is that there is no incentive for major studios to invest in a good movie that doesn't have a universal enough appeal. Looking at it from a Disney exec's point of view. (Who now owns Alien and Predator) If you are going to throw a wad a cash at only 8 movies a year, you want to maximize the ticket sales. Adults will get nostalgic over a Predator movie, but they will also get nostalgic for Star Wars or Spider man, and so are their kids. The movie that parents need to get baby sitters for is going to lose out in ticket sales just about any day of the week. The catch is, these movies don't even need to be well written to be successful. They just need enough hands on deck to keep them from failing. For the forseeable future, the bulk of our movies are are cycle of comic book, CGI and adventure films that straddle the PG/PG-13 rating scale. The long treasured, less family friendly franchises are being reduced to cash-ins. The ones that usually break the mold are made from outside Hollywood. Dredd was British, I think. Rambo, along with the other Stallone stuff like Creed and expendables, I believe that if it were not for Stallone being in the drivers seat pushing those movies, they would be dead in the water or terrible reboots at this point. I think Stallone produced a lot of that with overseas production companies as well. |
| fallacy:
Some franchises are too tied to the characters that played them making a sequel or reboot almost impossible. Terminator is a great example, without Arnold whatever they do is just bull.. It is also the reason they will never try to do a reboot on Back to the Future. Goonies has the problem where the kids were too good; you think it would be that hard to get a different group of kids on an adventure for treasure, call it The Goonies and collect that pay check. They know it will not even be close to as good as the one they are trying to replace and they would get raked over the coals for it. That's basically what they tried to do with Ghost Busters and look how that turned out. Everyone was like ya we liked the characters not just the fact they were shooting ghost with laser guns in New York I am more about taking these movie concepts and instead of just making another same length movie of what's already perfect turn it into a 12 episode series and add a lot more to it with that extra time. It will also give us the necessary amount of time letting the new actors ease into the role. Dusk Till Dawn is a good example, the first season copies beat for beat the movie but they added enough other little things that it was still just as interesting. |
| Vigo:
I think another question to ask is why haven't there been that many great, original franchise worthy films in the last decade? John Wick comes to mind, but the list doesn't go much further. Even a mediocre, yet original franchise like the Mummy would be refreshing at this point. |
| Howard_Casto:
Well that one is easy to answer. Say you are a studio head and this amazing script comes across your desk. It could make you millions... key word there is "could". Meanwhile some schlocks want to resurrect one of your mega blockbusters from days past. You know from market research that just having the name of the franchise slapped across a poster is going to make you millions. As the studio head of what is now a large corporate conglomerate, your job is to make money, not great films. Which one would you green light? |
| Navigation |
| Message Index |
| Next page |