Aren't We Overdoing It With Franchises?

William Shakespeare once wrote in Act 4, Scene 1 of his play As You Like It "…can one desire too much of a good thing? Perhaps, it is time that film production houses seriously ponder upon it. Why?

Well, it is another year that has called for another Superman reboot. If we haven’t already had enough with it. We have confirmation on Cate Blanchett heading up an American version of Squid Game (because apparently no one at Netflix has ever heard the phrase “leave well enough alone”), and Harry Potter is getting a full-blown HBO series. Because, what, eight movies weren’t enough?

If it feels like we're living in the extended universe of someone else’s imagination, it's because we are. And it is only natural that after a point we’d deeply suffer from a disease called franchise fatigue; where the biggest cinematic crime isn’t a bad film, but a redundant one.

To be fair, cinema for the longest time did not revolve around film series. It wasn’t always like this. There was a time when franchises once had to earn their sequels. They were born out of massive cultural moments like Star Wars, Indiana Jones, The Godfather.

Studios built worlds because audiences couldn’t get enough — not because stockholders demanded quarterly earnings from spin-offs, prequels, and merchandising.

Now, it's reversed. The franchise is the starting point, not the reward. In other words, we’re not watching great movies become franchises. We’re watching half-baked pitches get bloated into cinematic universes before they’ve even proven themselves.

The 2027 Harry Potter series is the perfect example. The films wrapped up just over a decade ago and were obviously well-received, beloved, and culturally ubiquitous. So, the idea of revisiting Hogwarts so soon doesn’t feel nostalgic more like, corporate.

Likewise, the American Squid Game doesn’t sound authentic. Instead, it feels like it’s an instance of  “How do we squeeze a few more subscriber dollars from something already perfect?”

But not all franchises are bad from the word go. There are a lot of exceptions. Seriously. Avatar: The Way of Water took over a decade and a billion-dollar tech breakthrough to land. It felt earned. And Top Gun: Maverick proved that with the right blend of craftsmanship, nostalgia, and star power, a sequel can elevate its legacy rather than dilute it.

But those films are rare outliers in an ecosystem that's otherwise choking on its own sequel smog.

Even former titans like Fast & Furious have lost their shine. What started as gritty street racing has mutated into gravity-defying action porn with increasingly less logic and more Vin Diesel mumbling about “family.” These movies used to feel like events unfortunately,  now they feel like contractual obligations. There’s a strange irony in the franchise about speed becoming the slowest to evolve.

The same thing is happening across the multiverse...sorry, I mean Marvelverse. Post-Endgame, the MCU has been spinning its wheels with forgettable films and shows that feel like a filler between bigger projects, so does the House of Dragons a prequel to Game of Thrones.

But why are we going back to these verses and building franchises when the Box office return for many of these recent franchises including Dial of Destiny, Fantastic Beasts and Indiana Jones feel underwhelming and now splits its audience more than it unites.

Studios are so fixated on “universe-building” that they’ve forgotten the core of good filmmaking: story. Not spin-offs. Not Easter eggs. Just a compelling, well-told narrative.

And maybe — just maybe — not everything needs to be a universe. Not every compelling character needs a prequel. Not every beloved title needs a remake. Sometimes, leaving a world alone is the best way to preserve its magic.