Why are profitable movie franchises allowed to die?
I really enjoyed the slow burn found footage movie "Paranormal Activity." I found it especially frightening because to me there's nothing scarier than spooky things happening around you when you're asleep. Also the most effective scares come from fear of the unknown, and the demon in the film remains mostly mysterious. It scared the crap out of me and I loved it for that, because I'm a horror junky.
The sequels mostly wandered away from those proven concepts. They were still found footage and heavily based on camcorder or security camera footage, but the terror of things moving in the darkness when you are unconscious was substituted for much more conventional horror genre scares. I found myself less and less interested in the movies.
But while many people seem to agree with me and the series got poor ratings after the first two films, let's face it, they are still INCREDIBLY profitable. For instance, the most recent one, "Paranormal Activity: The Ghost Dimension" cost about $10MM to make (which is a fortune for a PA movie, largely due to ILM making the effects to finally show the demon) but it has made almost $70MM only a few weeks after release ... and it's not done earning yet. That's a tidy profit for Paramount in an age where vastly expensive movies are not unknown to flop HARD.
I mean, I didn't go see it, but lots of people did. So I was shocked to read the film series has been declared over -- Ghost Dimension is the last PA. Who cares what the critics said? They make buckets of money -- so why stop? Hollywood is well known for shameless exploitation, so someone please explain this to me.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | August 20, 2020 10:31 AM
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Diminishing returns. The first few movies earned upwards of $200 million dollars worldwide each. The last three have seen the worldwide grosses steadily decline. Sure they still make a lot compared to the investment but at some point the minimal gain won't be worth it.
But don't worry. In a few years someone will probably come along and "reboot" the series.
| by Anonymous | reply 1 | November 9, 2015 9:54 PM
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In the case of franchises like Harry Potter, Twilight, Hunger Games, etc., they ran out of source material.
But they'll likely reboot the whole series at some point down the line.
| by Anonymous | reply 2 | November 9, 2015 10:11 PM
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[quote]they ran out of source material.
Amateurs
| by Anonymous | reply 3 | November 9, 2015 10:18 PM
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These things don't actually die, they just spend years in Development Hell.
And the "Harry Potter" films aren't dead, they're coming out with the "Fantastic Beasts" prequels soon. And there's the play about the grownup Harry Potter, that's likely to get a film adaptation, even if it sucks.
| by Anonymous | reply 4 | November 9, 2015 10:27 PM
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The actors get big heads and out price themselves. Remember even though a movie is profitable, for every movie that IS made, that take resources away from another movie.
So if you have the "DL series" and they make a movie that will make money, that means the XX movie will not be made. And who's to say the XX movie won't make more?
| by Anonymous | reply 5 | November 9, 2015 10:30 PM
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I hate the word "franchise". I just do.
| by Anonymous | reply 6 | November 9, 2015 11:14 PM
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Because the movie makers run the ideas into the ground cranking out new 'sequels/prequels' too quickly and cheaply. They shouldn't be putting out six movies in six years. Churning them out badly and people start to run as soon as they see a bad one.
| by Anonymous | reply 7 | November 9, 2015 11:54 PM
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Thing is though, R7, the sixth movie in this franchise (sorry) got panned, but it cost $10MM and has already made $68MM.
I should point out that $58MM of that was overseas, however, and I believe the studio sees less of that than US box office. But still the movie turned a nice profit.
| by Anonymous | reply 8 | November 10, 2015 12:10 AM
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Eventually they saturate the market too much and people get sick of them. I was there with Star Wars years ago, and I can't wait until society catches up.
| by Anonymous | reply 9 | August 19, 2020 9:36 PM
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The Paranormal Activity franchise was great until the third or fourth film. Once they brought in the cult it was no longer enjoyable because the threat went from an unseen supernatural force to just regular humans.
| by Anonymous | reply 10 | August 19, 2020 9:37 PM
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I still haven't seen the third PA movie. And I wish they'd kept the original ending of the first PA instead of taking Steven Spielberg's advice.
| by Anonymous | reply 11 | August 20, 2020 10:02 AM
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I can see why the cult aspect might not appeal, but to me the third PA film is the second-best of the franchise behind the original. They should have stopped there, they didn't need to get into it any further. But the two kid actors were quite good, and the scene with the stepdad walking through the empty house in the middle of the night, that long unbroken shot, was scary as fuck.
| by Anonymous | reply 12 | August 20, 2020 10:31 AM
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