This might look like a stock image. But this is what’s on my table right now!
Okay, if you’re coming here to hate on Venom 3’s box office, you do not have a co-conspirator in me. My buddy Kelly wrote and directed it and I would never say anything bad about her or her work so… we’ll have to wait until the next superhero movie to complain about the superhero genre.
Actually, I do have one negative thing to say about Venom. Why didn’t they ever make a Spider-Man Venom movie?? It was their only opportunity to create a big Spider-Man adventure in-house (at Sony) and not have to share it with Disney. Yet they didn’t even consider it! Don’t they have a name for that in the business world? Corporate malfeciense?
I see it as the final nail in the coffin of the “cinematic universe” strategy. It clearly doesn’t work. It worked for that one great Decade for Disney. But it was such a specific confluence of variables that allowed it to happen, it could never be done again. Even Marvel is realizing they can’t do it again.
What the HBO show, The Franchise, is confirming, is that when you rely on the “universe” approach and something goes badly in one of the movies, it screws up all plans to integrate that movie into the rest of the universe. You can’t include Captain Marvel in Iron Man 4 after The Marvels. Nobody wants to see her.
And, unfortunately, the way that movies are made, you have to put Captain Marvel in the Iron Man 4 production BEFORE The Marvels comes out. Which means you’ve already shot Iron Man 4 with a character everyone now hates, and you’re stuck with it.
Kevin Feige is starting to realize this and changing his strategy. He’s only allowing cross-integration between stories when it involves smaller characters and smaller plot developments. That way, you don’t have to worry about putting a poorly received character in the next Thor. The character is too small to matter.
But that then begs the question. If you’re pussy-footing around the universe, barely crossing over anything, then what’s the point of having a cinematic universe in the first place?
Look at how this has affected Star Wars. The Acolyte’s final season teaser is a behind-the-back shot of Yoda. But everyone hated The Acolyte. Which means now you’re tainting one of your most popular characters. There are a lot more pitfalls to fall into when doing cinematic universes than there are launch pads.
It makes me wonder where we’re going with movies. Some people have been speculating that the next big trend is going to be crossovers. Remember, a decade ago, when we were hearing rumors about a 21 Jump Street Men in Black crossover? That’s the kind of stuff we’re going to be getting. Because if the studios can’t depend on superheroes anymore, they don’t have many other options to make people show up to the theater. But putting two well-known IPs that you wouldn’t otherwise think would appear in the same movie, in the same movie, could be an easy way to get people to show up.
Of course, now you’re cannibalizing your studio because instead of being able to launch TWO big movies and take in all that money, you can only launch one. You also set a precedent to the audience that your character isn’t strong enough to have a movie of his own. Therefore, if you later try and release a movie with just him, people say, “But he’s no longer with Optimus Prime so who cares?” I mean, if they released another Deadpool movie with just Deadpool, how eager would we be to see it now that you’ve established Deadpool and Wolverine? “You mean it’s just… Deadpool? No thanks, I’ll wait for streaming.”
We all know what studios SHOULD do.
It’s obvious.
But they’re too chickenshit to do it.
They need to spend 3-5 years launching as many original titles as possible. I think their original titles make up 5% of their slate right now. They need to make that 70% of their slate. Some of those are going to hit big and now they have a number of cool franchises that can last years if not decades.
But they won’t do it!
They won’t do it.
Unless!
Unless you guys write an amazing spec script that the studios can’t say no too. But I’m going to be real here. A lot of you don’t write stuff that could become franchises. You don’t write stuff that’s commercial enough. You’ve got to find that commercial side of you that still allows you to write what you want to write about. It’s possible to do both, you know. I find the writers who *can* do both to be the ones who last the longest in this business.
What would I tell my young self to write if I was a brand new screenwriter coming on to the scene right now? I would write an action film but with some kind of interesting angle. It couldn’t be a generic idea such as, “A former NAVY SEAL finds himself running for his life when the Armenian mob becomes convinced that he killed their leader.” It needs some sort of interesting twist – something that would be a bit risky.
I know that can result in embarrassment. But let’s be real here. You can’t achieve anything in life without taking some risk. So you’re going to have to try and do something different. You can’t play it safe. I’m sorry but Die Hard on a riverboat isn’t going to cut it.
Let me be a little more specific about that because someone might point out the spec sale of John Wick and say, “The studios always buy generic action fare.” Actually, John Wick was originally 70 years old. That was the big risk screenwriter Derek Kolstad took. But then Reeves signed on and they made him younger.
The action label will put it on the studio radar because studios have looked and will always look for action movies. Action plays EVERYWHERE in the world. So that’s never going out of style. And then your twist is what’s going to make it fresh. It’s what’s going to separate it from all those other action movies out there.
Here are some examples: Edge of Tomorrow, Upgrade, Wanted, The Beekeeper, Into the Night, Big Trouble in Little China. Not all of these movies were great. But all of them either did or would’ve garnered spec script interest FOR SURE.
That’s it for today.
Tell me what you’re watching, tell me what you’re reading, tell me what you’re loving!
