It’s become pretty inconceivable to open a streaming service and not be met with a familiar headline. If a movie becomes a hit, it’s almost an expectation to create sequels, prequels, reboots, and spin-offs—anything to extend its universe.Why have one hit movie when you can use that hit to create more and more hits? Franchising titles has turned into quite the trend in recent years. But is that a good thing?
What Is Franchise Fatigue?
Sometimes you want to watch a single movie, and when you finish it, to know that was it; you’re done with that world. However, that’s become a rare experience in the last few decades or so.
Some titles come out with pre-planned continuations, so you know to expect the story doesn’t end with a single flick. Others become such hits that despite being planned as standalone features initially, they end up getting franchised—some examples.
Many agree the Toy Story trilogy was perfect, but that didn’t stop a fourth and fifth movie from coming out to boostDisney+’s already extensive catalog. Netflix’s Knives Out was supposed to be a standalone, but people liked it so much that the streaming service released another one. And then you have superhero franchises.
Franchise fatigue is just that; movie watchers are frustrated that one title comes attached with more. You can’t just watch one movie; there are others to consume before, after, or alongside so you can keep up with the story.
It all gets too much, and you get overwhelmed. You don’t need every flick to have an extended cinematic universe, but it feels like you’re getting one for every title.
You Can Have Too Much of a Good Thing
While it can be nice to immerse yourself in a world, see different points of view and experience various stories and timelines, it can also become too much. Let’s look at Disney+ and its biggest hits, for example.
Star Wars started as a story that seemed novel and fresh. And because it hooked so many people, it grew. And it simply never stopped growing. New films and shows seem to come out annually.
Nowadays, you have an expansive universe of movies and shows in the double digits. And, if you want to know all, you have to go over all of them since each one offers a different aspect of the story you’re following that connects to the others.
Disney+ doesn’t stop with its Star Wars universe. It’s also home to the Marvel Cinematic Universe, which also has a ton of movies and shows comprising it, and, of course, everything is connected. So you feel like you may’t watch a newly released flick unless you’ve caught up to everything that came before it. And that’s a lot.
Disney+ provides separate tabs on its platform for Star Wars and Marvel, including all the titles you can watch in the same universe. And it’s daunting to even browse through it. Just going over the Marvel section display is overwhelming. You can watch the flicks in timeline order or the order they came out in, and even making that decision seems exhausting.
Ultimately, all these expansive franchises leave youtoo hard to choose what to watch, and you end up giving up and playing something you’ve already seen or switching to a different streaming service.
Disney+ isn’t the only one who does this, but it’s the one that’s been most successful at it.
Franchise Fatigue Makes Everything Look Alike
Other popular franchises done to death include Jurassic Park, James Bond, Halloween, Terminator, Fast and Furious, and on and on. The big screen is plenty occupied by franchises, but why is the small one following suit?
It’s not to brand any of the movies from these franchises as particularly bad or unnecessary; the point is, why are streaming services focusing on extending franchises in the first place?
Why are continuations, expansions, and fluff prioritized when original content seems to lag so far behind?
Yes, franchises tend to be lucrative but is that all that streaming services should focus on? If we’re getting enough of that on the big screen, can streaming platforms at least pivot?
It seems like the answer is no, since streaming services have been doing their best to start new franchises.
HBO struck gold with George R. R. Martin when it did Game of Thrones. Due to how massive the show got, HBO began airing House of the Dragon and has teased that at one point, it had five other spin-off shows from the same universe in the making. Netflix’s The Witcher became a hit, and the streaming service tried its hand at expanding the universe with The Witcher: Blood Origin.
These platforms attempting to expand their hit shows make it seem like every streaming service is the same with minor differences—Disney is for space wars, HBO is for fantasy wars, and so on.
Franchise Fatigue Leads to Many Cancelations
Then, on the more annoying side, when streaming services do release original content, they end up canceling it anyway because, presumably, it doesn’t reach numbers like their big hits.
Netflix is most guilty of this since it’s a running joke on social media that you should wait for at least three seasons of a new show to be out before you start it since it might get canceled on you just as you get into it.
HBO seems to have the best score when it comes to good original content versus franchising existing titles. The streaming platform offered Succession, The White Lotus, and The Last of Us while also investing in its Game of Thrones universe expansion. ButHBO’s streaming service Max is certainly not perfect.
There’s More Than One Way to Enjoy Streaming
But subscribing to all available services, or even just a few, can rack up quite the price. There are options to consider, though. If you wish to still enjoy the convenience of streaming services without breaking the bank, you’re able to check out some available free streaming sites.
