'Wicked,' 'Red One,' and the future of movie IP
"Wicked" and "Red One" are two diverging examples of a hard Hollywood truth: the movie industry needs new franchises.
The Gist
“Red One” and “Wicked” had very different box-office debuts over the last two weekends but they both showcase how Hollywood needs new franchises.
Established ones have run their course and are entering new stages.
Meanwhile, “new” movie IP like Wicked, Barbie, and Super Mario highlight how audiences are craving fresh but familiar material at the movies.
“Red One,” a Dwayne Johnson-starring holiday action movie that was meant to launch a new franchise, was pretty much dead on arrival last weekend with $34 million in the US. With an impressive A- CinemaScore, that sum may have been fine for an original action movie — if it didn’t cost $250 million to make, an eye-popping and ludicrous amount of money (and for Johnson, whose star has been fading for a while, it appears that the jig is officially up).
But despite the disappointment, the movie had one thing right: Movie studios are in desperate need of new franchises/IP, or at least a refresh for its existing ones, to re-energize its business and entice more audiences, especially as some established franchises have seemed to overstay their welcome. Further, solid IP lifts all boats: the main problem with “Red One” is that it’s hard to distinguish who it’s for, and what its purpose is beyond the box office.
For Amazon, which released the movie, “Red One” is not going to drive more engagement with Prime; parents aren’t buying Red One action figures for their kids or soundtrack vinyls or other merchandise, and there doesn’t seem to be much left to squeeze out of it in terms of a sequel or other media. It might be a hit on Prime Video when it eventually lands there, but is that worth $250 million?
But this weekend brought a very different kind of tentpole that carries all of the hallmarks (at least in the US) of what Hollywood wants out of fresh IP that “Red One” didn’t have, like a pre-existing audience and long shelf life after it leaves theaters, whether that be through streaming or merchandise.
Universal’s film adaptation of the blockbuster stage musical “Wicked” hit theaters (along with “Gladiator II”). I saw it Thursday night and it’s *John Travolta voice* wickedly entertaining. It’s eyeing an opening of around $115 million in the US this weekend. While that’s below some initial high-end projections that put it closer to $150 million, it’s still a solid debut for a new film series. As industry analyst David A Gross pointed out, the weekend before Thanksgiving has launched others, like Harry Potter, Frozen, and Twilight, but believe it or not, none of those cracked $100 million domestic in their openings.
(An aside: One thing “Wicked” is lacking is international sales. It earned $50 million outside the US over the weekend, and industry watchers expect most of the box office to come from the US. A robust domestic total will be enough to paint it a success, though, and if anything, “Part One” should be decent overseas marketing for the sequel.)
“Wicked” follows other “new” movie IP, like Barbie (a toy) and Super Mario (a video game), that have excelled at attracting audiences coming out of the pandemic, reinvigorated interest in the material that went far beyond the cinema, and established a potential blueprint for Hollywood’s future in franchise filmmaking. After superheroes dominated the 2010s, moviegoers want some fresh blood.
Of course, there have been the usual suspects that have succeeded at the box office in recent years and there will still be those going forward, like Pixar’s “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool and Wolverine.” But there have been far more disappointments or outright flops, like the sequels “Joker 2” and “The Marvels.” And new entries in long-running franchises that had helped keep Hollywood afloat for a decade-plus, from Fast to Transformers, have disappointed post-pandemic. Studios are so scared of a high-profile box-office bomb these days that they’ve even reportedly enlisted “super fan focus groups.”
That doesn’t mean that established franchises don’t have any life left in them. But some are about to enter new stages in their lifespan, with seemingly “final” installments coming for Fast and Furious and Mission: Impossible, and the DC Universe getting a reboot with next year’s “Superman.” That opens the door for not just fresh takes on this material, but also others to make a name for themselves.
Some of the best most recent examples of successful franchise starters — ones that managed to break out through the noise of the comic-book movie craze of the last decade — are horror movies, a low-risk, high-reward genre. The Conjuring universe has been pretty consistent over the last decade. “A Quiet Place” has spawned a sequel and a prequel, with a threequel on the way.
The “John Wick” series is another success story, starting as a low-budget action movie in 2014 that has grown into a bonafide franchise with three sequels, a TV series, and an upcoming film spinoff later. The key, it seems, is to start small (looking at you, “Red One”) — unless of course you’re an established and innovative big-name filmmaker like James Cameron. When “Avatar” became the biggest movie of all time 15 years ago, it didn’t immediately spawn a sequel with more on the way. But “The Way of Water” was also a blockbuster, more sequels are in the works, and “Avatar” is a bonafide multi-platform franchise, including video games and them park rides.
But starting a new movie franchise from scratch is easier said than done in modern Hollywood, when studios have become so risk-averse and internal development has been so eroded.
“In the last 15-20 years, development divisions in Hollywood have largely been hollowed out as the industry became content to recycle its own libraries thanks to shifting audience behaviors and a changing economic landscape,” Brandon Katz, senior entertainment industry analyst at Parrot Analytics, told me.
So where are studios looking for fresh IP? Much has been said about how video games are the obvious answer now. After years of abject failures, Hollywood has finally gotten games right (“Borderlands” notwithstanding) in recent years with Mario, HBO’s “The Last of Us,” and Prime Video’s “Fallout.” The bad news for movie theaters though is that Hollywood has also figured out that games naturally lend themselves to a TV format, and some of the biggest in-development game adaptations, like Amazon’s God of War and Netflix’s Assassin’s Creed, are for the small screen.
Still, there’s plenty of untapped gaming IP to choose from. I reached out to research firm Omdia for some insight on what has the most potential to make the leap, based on factors like sales (built-in audience!) and story (narrative or lore driven?). A few I’d like to highlight here are fantasy RPGs “Elden Ring” and “Skyrim,” as well as the sci-fi horror shooter “Dead Space.”
The latter is less successful commercially; Omdia estimates 9 million copies sold across the entire franchise. But again, horror is a formidable genre at the movies; we saw sci-fi horror this year break through with “Alien: Romulus” (which is already as close to a “Dead Space” movie as you can get without making a “Dead Space” movie).
“Skyrim” and “Elden Ring” have sold at least 30 million and 20 million copies, respectively, making them two of the best-selling games ever; they’re less linear-story focused, which might support TV more so than film (see also, “Fallout”), but are also popular enough where they could carry global box office (even “Warcraft,” considered a failure, earned almost $400 million outside the US).
Regarding “Elden Ring,” Sony is reportedly in talks to buy Kadokawa, the Japanese media company that owns the game’s developer. That would create an enticing pathway to the screen, not to mention Kadokawa is also a major player in manga and anime, something Sony is already invested in with the Crunchyroll streaming service.
Anime and manga in general provide decades of untapped potential for Hollywood, something that Sony is obviously doubling down on and major streamers have already figured out (Netflix’s “One Piece” live-action series was its biggest show of the second half of 2023). I’ve written before about the anime boom and Hollywood’s manga moment, so I won’t dwell on it. But I’ll re-iterate data from Parrot Analytics from earlier this year that showed that the most in-demand anime in the world were“Jujutsu Kaisen,” “Attack on Titan,” and “My Hero Academia,” none of which have gotten the live-action treatment.
Maybe it’s a strange time to assert that Hollywood needs new franchises when the top 10 movies of the year globally so far are all sequels (that will change in the coming weeks with “Wicked”). But there are other, non-sequel movies that have broken through like “It Ends With Us,” based on a novel that blew up on TikTok, and the animated “The Wild Robot,” which is sure to launch a sequel or two.
It’s inevitable that moviegoing tastes will change, and I think we’re seeing it happen slowly but surely. Hollywood should get ahead of it.
Beyond the Traverse
🤖 Hollywood will still make movies based on Hasbro toys, but the company won’t help finance them.
🎮 The CEO of EA is reportedly in the running to succeed Disney’s Bob Iger, suggesting how important gaming could be to the company’s future.
⚔️ HBO boss Casey Bloys confirmed that Warner Bros. is developing ideas for a “Game of Thrones” movie.
⭐️ Speaking of franchises in need of a creative re-set (and new leadership), the future of Rey in Star Wars is apparently part of many deliberations at Lucasfilm.