We need a hero.
The American movie going audience has plenty of them in spandex and intergalactic armor, but like Batman at the end of “The Dark Knight,” they’re not the heroes we need right now.
American cinema currently lacks a quality, classical, legacy franchise. We have plenty of franchises constantly in production, but very few of them match the action movie template of the ‘80s and early ‘90s that were unadulterated fun and were marketed to people other than ravenous fanboys.
These movies were original ideas that didn’t draw from comic books, graphic novels, teen romance novels or TV shows. But what’s more, they featured men and women without superpowers or futuristic gizmos who performed stunts that were ridiculous, but at least they were down to Earth. They were fun and only rarely something more.
I’m talking about franchises like “Die Hard,” “Indiana Jones,” “Rambo,” “Mad Max,” “Lethal Weapon,” “Dirty Harry” and more. Say what you will about the quality of these movies and their subsequent sequels, audiences knew what to expect from these films and treated them as pleasant surprises.
Today’s franchises are must-see events. They’re the end-all/be-all of greatest movie ever in the minds of these excitable kids, and a sequel is expected upon delivery. In fact, directors like Peter Jackson and James Cameron are filming their franchises in bulk, with “The Hobbit” now becoming a trilogy and “Avatar” doing the same before a sequel has even been close to completion.
The only time a movie doesn’t get an automatic sequel is if something tanks so monumentally bad, like “The Green Lantern,” that a studio has to quickly pull the plug.
The one saving grace I saw in this whole mess was Jason Bourne. Matt Damon and Paul Greengrass built Bourne into a serious action star without skimping on the elements that could make the franchise marketable. These too were based on Robert Ludlum’s novels, but the character wasn’t already ingrained in the popular culture.
This Friday, “The Bourne Legacy” was released as a continuation to this franchise, despite a lack of Damon and Greengrass. This would’ve been a perfect opportunity to rewrite the character while keeping the spirit of the franchise alive in the same way that’s been done for years with James Bond. But now Jeremy Renner has stepped into the same universe as Bourne under a new moniker. There’s no reason the part could not have been played by someone other than Damon.
We do however still have James Bond. Yes, “Skyfall” will be very anticipated when it arrives this November. But Bond hasn’t had the influence on the 21st Century the way figures like Harry Potter, Bella Swan, Batman and Jack Sparrow have. These franchises I’ve mentioned are ending or have already ended, and although “Pirates” is actually receiving a fifth film, it’s one of those franchises that wouldn’t sustain if Johnny Depp were no longer a part of it.
The remaining franchises that don’t fall into any of these categories are less admirable. The schlock horror/action movies like “Saw,” “Resident Evil,” “Final Destination,” “Underworld” and even “Paranormal Activity” will persist simply because they are so cheap. “Fast and the Furious” and “Step Up” are built more around their genres than their characters. And Hollywood will continue to resurrect franchises from the dead (“Rocky Balboa,” “Rambo,” “Die Hard 5” is still to come and murmuring continues about “Indiana Jones 5”) rather than build new ones.
When I saw the trailer for “The Expendables 2,” I actually didn’t roll my eyes in complete boredom. I don’t expect the movie to be by any means stellar, but here were these men, these actors, who were larger than life in this film, not the superhero or the mythology behind them. Sylvester Stallone made these films because he sensed a gap in the action movies of today. “They harken back to a time when heroes were flesh and blood,” he said in an interview. “It’s the beginning of a revival but the end of an era.”
I don’t need a franchise filling my time any more than I need another generic rom-com, but how do you build something new in today’s day and age and make it stick?
I can think of two exceptions. The first is “Mission: Impossible.” The movies are total popcorn, they’ve changed directors over time, and there’s no reason Tom Cruise should be the only Ethan Hunt. The fourth film even gave new life to the franchise by being somewhat good. There is a fifth film currently in production.
The other is the Millennium trilogy, or “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo” and its upcoming sequels. Stieg Larsson had intended to write a fourth novel, so there’s no telling how many more adventures (or rapes and murders) Lisbeth Salander can get into.
I bring all this up because it seems as if the movies are really struggling to build dedicated audiences for new franchises. The fervor has been directed towards television, and the Marvel and DC universes are running out of lucrative characters to mine.
Places like China and Thailand have figured it out. There’s a strong market for the “Ip Man” and “Ong Bak” films overseas. Martial artist stars are being developed in vehicles like “The Raid: Redemption,” even if the movies aren’t built for franchising.
Its clear Hollywood has the capacity for this. We Americans know how to reproduce junk and mass-market genre fare like no other. We just need a hero.