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Will studios and streamers’ aversion to risk endanger our
current golden age of TV? The pattern of repeats, spin-offs, remakes and
franchise fodder seems set for the next decade, but surely to diminishing
cultural returns?
To take just one example: The Star Wars universe has
multiplied on TV, but also got smaller. An Obi Wan Kenobi series is just one of
10 new TV and animated shows Disney has planned. There are even calls for one
of the most successful film franchises of all time, James Bond, to be spun-off
into TV. Makes sense given that all 25 films, including No Time To Die,
is part of MGM and therefore now part of Amazon.
“I think that valuable IP and valuable brands can be very
successful if used across multiple formats,” Michael Pachter, a Netflix analyst
at the investment firm Wedbush Securities, said to The Guardian. “And
absolutely, Bond is that valuable because it has lasted nearly 60 years. It’s a
lasting franchise.”
It’s all about IP. Get some with instant brand name
recognition and you’ve a built in fanbase to launch your show and stand out
from the pack. Studios have always mined their own titles — only now more so.
Paramount, for example, continues to lean heavily on the Star Trek IP
with six separate series on Paramount+ and more in development, but the studio
is also set to make new episodic shows from classics in its locker
including Grease, Fatal Attraction, Flashdance, The
Italian Job, Love Story and The Parallax View.
The Parallax View? I can see how the paranoid
political climate of the era (the film was made in 1974) could lend itself to a
modern retelling, but it’s an odd one to pick out of the archive. Would an
original story have been better than leaning on the coattails of Alan J.
Pakula’s cult classic? How much recall does the audience have for the 1974 film
anyway?
IndieWire rounds up the dilemma thusly, “How will an
inundation of intellectual property affect the kind of stories that, not so
long ago, produced a (second) Golden Age of acclaimed original programming?
Most importantly, will there be room for unknowns to compete in a landscape
packed with returning favorites?”
Diving into IP with spin-offs, retreads and versions for
different media can end up eating itself. Look no further than Warner Bros
universally panned Space Jam 2: A New Legacy which trapped LeBron
James and Looney Tunes characters — along with the audience — in the charmless
WB Serververse.
It’s impossible to talk about TV franchises without
mentioning Game of Thrones. When HBO’s highly lucrative adaptation
of George R.R. Martin’s books ended in 2019, the network didn’t waste time
figuring out the next chapter: Expected in early 2022, House of the
Dragon will be the first official spinoff, but there are plenty more
in development.
While Casey Bloys, HBO and HBO Max’s chief content officer,
has insisted on preserving quality over quantity with the franchise — he even
said, “Ten would be too many,” in reference to Disney+ new Star Wars
series — IndieWire notes that “Game of Thrones is simply
too big to go away, especially as HBO Max fights for its place among the
must-have streamers.”
If you don’t have in-house IP, you can always buy it. Hence,
Amazon’s swoop for Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings, as if Peter
Jackson’s epic feature installments weren’t the last word; or Netflix’s
grab for the family favorites of author Roald Dahl.
Netflix needs its own stable of content as studios end
licenses for the streamer to air their most valuable back catalogue but good
luck making something out of ‘Charlie and The Great Glass Elevator’, Dahl’s own
distinctly weird follow-up to ‘Charlie and the Chocolate Factory’ featuring
alien shape shifting Knids. Taika Waititi has been handed this task of turning
it into an animated series.
James Cameron’s multiple Avatar sequels fit
into this somewhere, although there is fanfare made about them by Disney (née
Fox). Number three is in the can, with four and five filming (according to
Cameron’s IMDB listing). Much will depend on the performance of Avatar
2, currently set for December 2022, although there must be a question mark
over how many fans the original blockbuster has carried with it. Avatar
seems to have been made in another era — which in 2009 it was. Were it a hit
today you can imagine the more likely home for the eco-and AI-themed Avatar universe
is the TV.
IndieWire rightly calls out Apple TV+ and FX for
charting a different route in going after quality with fresh stories. As the
newest kid on the content block Apple has no choice if it isn’t going to outlay
millions on external IP. Among its world building hopes is the epoch hopping
multi-book intergalactic saga of Foundation, penned by Isaac Azimov
and translated to screen by Dark Knight scribe David S Goyer.
“Apple’s unique in a few different ways,” said Brad
Gastwirth, Wedbush Securities’ chief technology strategist. “I think they like
creating their own content and being the producer rather than being the copier.”
Yet will this strategy give it the scale to compete with the
top streamers like Amazon Prime, Disney+, HBO Max and Netflix? A recent survey
by Whip Media suggests not. Despite admiration for many Apple TV+
commissions, consumers also seem to want the comfort blanket of a large library
if they are going to spend monthly fees on an SVOD.
Not every version built on the shoulders of what has come
before is a dud. There are countless examples of a remake, a reimagining, an
origins story perhaps, being better than the original.
Just as The Godfather Part II is as revered
— and some argue better than — The Godfather, so Netflix took AMC
show Breaking Bad and made Better Call Saul, in
which the writing and acting just gets richer and richer (thanks to showrunner
Vince Gilligan) with each series.
Ultimately, we — the audience — get what we want. If we’re
content with reheated versions of stories we already know then fine, that’s on
us. Or as IndieWire’s Ben Travers urges, we just need to broaden the
conversation.
“People can’t spend all their time re-watching old classics
— give something new a try. Once you find a hidden gem, talk about it. Get some
word of mouth going. Don’t let the blockbusters suck all the air out of the
room. TV doesn’t have to become monolithic. But that’s up to all of us.”
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