I just read the following article from Owen Gleiberman, a well-known movie reporter, that basically states that we really shouldn't worry about Disney owning every major property on the planet because, simply, their popularity cannot last forever. With Solo, we've already seen that Star Wars can be mortal box office wise; the infinity saga has ended on an astronomical high note, but how long can that last? So, based on the assumption that the article is right, what is the next big thing that's going to take over Hollywood? What will be The next Star Wars/Lord of the Rings/Marvel?

https://variety.com/2019/film/columns/why-is-everyone-scared-of-disney-1203267038/

A couple of possibilities:

1. Dune- Denis Villanueva is filming his version of Dune as we speak, and there's a ton of possibility here. Dune has a Game of Thrones caliber story told in different formats with different authors for almost sixty years now- there's a ton of draw from if executed properly.

2. Marvels new properties- between Fantastic Four and X-Men, it's a good bet that one or either of those will be successful in some way.

3. Avatar Sequels- while I always liked Avatar, I've never fully understood how it is the top grossing film of all time. To me, it's always been kind of a pretty decent movie that blew up far beyond the caliber of story it was telling.but maybe the crazy sequels that Cameron has planned will set Hollywood on fire?

Any other ideas?

texagbeliever said:

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Does John Wick count as new? Kind of reminds me of MI or Bourne type series.

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I love Jon Wick, but that'll never get to the popularity level of a Star Wars or Marvel.

Warner Bros.' next iteration of Batman in 2021 will likely be huge. No surprise there, though. The studio is also in the process of resurrecting The Matrix franchise, though I doubt it will come close to the hype of its glory days.

Overall, I think "the next big thing" is basically more of the same. More Marvel movies, more DC movies, more Star Wars movies. With the Avatar and Dune franchises vying for a piece of the pie as well. Outside of those five "franchises," I really don't see anything else capturing the zeitgeist in the next five years or so, unless it's an out-of-no-where blockbuster surprise.

I would categorize it something like this, in terms of blockbuster franchises for the foreseeable future...

Your "Power Five" franchises...
-Marvel
-DC
-Star Wars
-Avatar
-Dune

Your "Mid-major" franchises...
-Fast & Furious
-Disney Live-Action Remakes (post Lion King)
-Bond (post Craig)
-Mission: Impossible
-John Wick
-Harry Potter (expanded universe)
-The Matrix

Dune could probably go either way, but as of now it feels like WB is really trying make it the next big franchise, with content across multiple platforms. And Transformers could probably be considered "mid major," but I think we first need to see what their post-Bumblebee plans are. But outside of the above, there's really nothing else big on the horizon that I can think of.

I've actually had a similar thought about this.

Since the early 00's, the following blockbuster franchises have come and gone:

The Matrix
Lord of the Rings
Harry Potter
Pirates of the Carribbean
Transformers
Hunger Games
MCU (The Infinity saga)
Star Wars (Skywalker saga)

Each one of those had its day in the sun where it was breaking records and was the big dog in Hollywood, but I can't remember the last time things were this uncertain about the major franchises going forward.

I guess the DCEU is still kicking, and I'm sure the next WW is gonna be another smash, but it's just never taken hold like the MCU. And outside of that (and MCU one-offs and sequels), everything else is basically dormant, it seems like.

It's a very interesting time in Hollywood, for sure.

Don't be surprised if anything listed above gets rebooted or revived. This is the age of the reboot, after all.

In fact I think Pirates is already confirmed to be in the "soft-reboot" phase and coming in the next few years.

jeffk said:

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4D Smell-o-vision films.

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Goodness gwacious!!!

Yeah that's a good point.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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I think we're in the middle of a watershed moment where TV (+streaming) is replacing movies as the home of the "blockbuster".

Just this year we've had Game of Thrones, Stranger Things, and we have The Mandalorian on the way.

LOTR and the GoT prequel series are also currently in production.

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More like a watershed decade.
The living room TV started "replacing" the movie theater back in the 1950s.
The HD revolution and height of "peak" TV has been in place for 10yrs (maybe 15).

Re: Dune - again, it could go either way. But WB swung for the fences, cast-wise, and has ALREADY greenlit a spin-off series for TV, the pilot of which will also be directed by the film's director. Very few franchises are this ambitious out of the gate, and WB must be confident or they wouldn't be spending this kind of money on multiple iterations of the property, this soon. They're not making this solely for Dune fans. Villeneuve has said he's aiming to make "Star Wars for adults" and it will likely be marketed as such.

TCTTS said:

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Warner Bros.' next iteration of Batman in 2021 will likely be huge. No surprise there, though. The studio is also in the process of resurrecting The Matrix franchise, though I doubt it will come close to the hype of its glory days.

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So much of the original Matrix was really great visual effects, some of them made you ask "how they hell did they do that?" Now visual effects are so good in general they can fade into the background. Look at the time travel suits in avengers. The amazing thing about them is that they're 100% CG and you literally can't even tell.

Quote:

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Overall, I think "the next big thing" is basically more of the same. More Marvel movies, more DC movies, more Star Wars movies. With the Avatar and Dune franchises vying for a piece of the pie as well. Outside of those five "franchises," I really don't see anything else capturing the zeitgeist in the next five years or so, unless it's an out-of-no-where blockbuster surprise.

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It almost seems like there are two completely separate classes of movies at this point. Blockbuster franchise movies where the budgets are in the hundreds of millions and box office numbers approach and frequently surpass $1B. Young adult book adaptations come and go and can have pretty big impacts for 5-6 years, but they don't really approach Star Wars and now Marvel.

Then there is everything else that has kind of always been there. Some big budget blockbusters (although when the relative sure thing of an established franchise is available, these may become more rare), some mid-budget movies and a bunch of low budget indie movies.

It feels like the top end has separated itself, and the accessibility of recording and editing equipment has created a boom in low and ultra low budget movies (although this has probably been happening to some extent since digital camcorders with good quality became available.)

Does tv count in this? Bc if it does, then I would go with Pierce Brown's Red Rising trilogy.

I think it could be the "next" Star Wars if made into movies, but I think I read recently that they're going with tv format after success of GOT.

I could also see one of Brandon Sanderson's series being a big hit either in movies or tv. Mistborn, The Reckoner, or Stormlight. I think The Reckoners could be great counter-programming to all the superhero movies there are now and would really take off if done right.

Really, I think Sanderson will hit on something big eventually. His stories are great and he also has the added element of keeping it pretty PG to PG-13. I think the R rated stuff is always limited from really taking off b/c so many kids cannot see it.

So more of the same stuff for the next five years, which means more of me not going to the movie theater.

Silky Johnston said:

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So more of the same stuff for the next five years, which means more of me not going to the movie theater.

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It's pretty ridiculous right now. Quick look at what is currently showing here locally shows:

Spiderman 2
MIB Internation (3)
Toy Story 4
Aladdin

That looks like a lineup from when I was in high school.

That being said, I don't go see any of the other stuff they have out.

Horror seems to be having a renaissance, but I won't spend movie theater money on it.

Spiderman is probably the only non-disney movie my family has seen in the theaters in a long time. So I guess I cannot complain too much.

Actual transgender Mulan

I check out small town theater listings sometimes when I'm on the road, the trends you mention are way more evident there. Like the kind of place where they only get one movie a week, it's getting Toy Story 4. Followed by Aladdin.

I feel like we still get a decent number of choices at urban megaplexes (as long as it's not an MCU/Disney opening weekend). But I wonder how many smaller theaters there are that just have to go with the safest choice.

NoahAg said:

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Reboots of every great movie....w/ all female casts.

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I'm personally excited for the reboot of an all female cast movie that bombed trying to reboot a male led movie.

I plan to see it at least 5 times.. maybe more.

I think Biopics will be a new genre of choice for the movie industry. The overhead is much less than the major blockbusters, and they all have built in loyal fan bases depending on the individual depicted that will definitely show up to watch. When even a dud like "Stan and Ollie" can pull a 260% ROI, biopics should be no-brainers for movie-makers, and they've finally figured it out.

We've always had biopics, but the frequency has skyrocketed over the past few years. With the success of pictures like Straight Outta Compton, Rocketman, and Bohemian Rhapsody, the industry has suddenly seen a huge surge in musician-themed biopics being approved and supported financially.

I personally think Netflix has helped with this. Smaller lower-budget biopics have exceeded expectations by a mile on Netflix, and the big-time producers want to replicate that on the big screen.

Political/Historical biopics are surging as well, whether they are more historical or more biased. Shows like Vice and The Darkest Hour surprised a lot of people, especially with a big-name star bumping up the production cost.

Speaking of that, I think this renaissance started with small-budget films with B & C-list casts, but we're starting to see more A-listers sign on for bigger projects. Budgets are growing from $10-20M to $40, $60, and even more. This is a drop in the bucket compared to the comic book action flicks, but that's also kind of the point.

Having James Cameron on the sidelines for literally 3 decades focused almost solely on Avatar has likely robbed us of some great original content. Who knows what might have been.

Gig-Em2003 said:

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Having James Cameron on the sidelines for literally 3 decades focused almost solely on Avatar has likely robbed us of some great original content. Who knows what might have been.

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I'm glad I'm not the only who feels this way. I just watched True Lies the other day, and it reminded me that Cameron, for al of his visionary credentials, really just started out as a schlocky, badass action director. Instead of dedicating his life to tech to tell a kind of mediocre story (Avatar), why not go back to his roots and just direct a lean and mean old school action movie.

John Matrix said:

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Gig-Em2003 said:

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Having James Cameron on the sidelines for literally 3 decades focused almost solely on Avatar has likely robbed us of some great original content. Who knows what might have been.

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I'm glad I'm not the only who feels this way. I just watched True Lies the other day, and it reminded me that Cameron, for al of his visionary credentials, really just started out as a schlocky, badass action director. Instead of dedicating his life to tech to tell a kind of mediocre story (Avatar), why not go back to his roots and just direct a lean and mean old school action movie.

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Like the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate movie?

sornman said:

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John Matrix said:

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Gig-Em2003 said:

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Having James Cameron on the sidelines for literally 3 decades focused almost solely on Avatar has likely robbed us of some great original content. Who knows what might have been.

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I'm glad I'm not the only who feels this way. I just watched True Lies the other day, and it reminded me that Cameron, for al of his visionary credentials, really just started out as a schlocky, badass action director. Instead of dedicating his life to tech to tell a kind of mediocre story (Avatar), why not go back to his roots and just direct a lean and mean old school action movie.

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Like the upcoming Terminator: Dark Fate movie?

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He's not directing, only producing.

Brian Earl Spilner said:

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Yeah, breaking the record for highest grossing movie of all time each decade can probably get boring.

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I know, right? Why is he not listening to the advice of a guy on a college sports website with a username from a campy Schwarzenegger movie from 1985?