Are You a Fan of These Shared Cinematic Universes?

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Paramount’s plan for what amounts to a Hasbro “cinematic universe” is taking shape. But do audiences even want what every studio in town assumes they want?

There is one piece of great news to be offered. The would-be team being assembled is a lot more diverse than you’d expect for this kind of thing. The plan, detailed by The Hollywood Reporter, is being spearheaded by Michael Chabon (The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay), Brian K. Vaughn (Y: The Last Man), and Nicole Perlman (co-screenwriter of Guardians of the Galaxy and Captain Marvel).

Also onboard is Lindsey Breer (now adapting Kingkiller Chronicle for Lionsgate), Cheo Corker (Luke Cage showrunner), and Spider-Man: Homecoming writers John Francis Daley and Jonathan Goldstein. The team also includes Jeff Pinker (who wrote The Dark Tower for Sony), Nicole Riegel (who wrote the unproduced script Dogfight), and Geneva Robertson (one of the writers of the new Tomb Raider movie).

Allspark Pictures will produce the films. It will be overseen by Akiva Goldsman who will serve as an executive producer. And as you can see, that’s a not of “not a white male” talent mixed in. So that’s arguably enough to make me root for this one more than, for example, the Transformers universe.

But what is worth asking, even with optimism that a film franchise built out of G.I. Joe, Micronauts, Visionaries, M.A.S.K., and ROM can work, is whether audiences want theatrical cinematic universes in the first place. It’s been four years since The Avengers surpassed all expectations for franchises or properties that could be molded into a would-be cinematic universe akin to what Marvel has done. But all of this work, with gazillions of dollars at stake, is based on the yet unproven theory that audiences want this kind of thing as a prime staple of their cinematic diet.

Warner Bros./Time Warner Inc. didn’t just try the same trick with their DC Comics properties. They have also embarked on what will allegedly be an interconnected universe from the Hanna-Barbara cartoons started by a new Scooby Doo movie and possibly including the likes of Yogi Bear, The Jetsons, The Smurfs, Top Cat, Jonny Quest, Wacky Races, and Sealab 2020. Universal/Comcast Corp. has a “Universal Classic Monsters” universe starting up next year with Tom Cruise’s The Mummy, Johnny Depp’s The Invisible Man, and whatever else comes to pass among many rumored projects.

Paramount has designs to turn their “one sequel every few years” Transformers franchise into a series of connected films, with a Bumblebee movie to follow Transformers 5 in the summer of 2018. Sony is combining their Men in Black and 21 Jump Street franchises into a single MIB 23 release while still threatening to make a Venom movie and still potentially using Paul Feig’s Ghostbusters as a jumping off point for a whole series of Ghostbusters movies featuring different teams.

Some of this may come to pass. Some may die in development. But the odd thing is that all of Hollywood is barrelling toward a “cinematic universe” cliff without having any concrete proof that audiences want this. It sounds great at shareholder meetings and in press releases, but it’s an unproven formula beyond its single and possibly singular success story.

All of this, every would-be interconnected world is based on the success of Marvel and their MCU. More specifically, it was based on the $1.5 billion success of The Avengers four years ago. Before that, every studio claimed that they wanted the next Dark Knight or a Batman Begins. They wanted a somewhat action-centric origin story for said characters in their studio treasure box which would get audiences excited about said character and thus said franchise.

But here we are in 2016, with around half-a-dozen very expensive would-be expanded universes being created, and we have the next-to-no idea if audiences will embrace this notion any more than we did before the opening weekend of The Avengers. It’s a classic case of reading the specific success of a particular movie and presuming that it amounts to a readily duplicated template.

Just because audiences embraced a more grounded and real-world Batman story doesn’t mean they wanted a darker and more grounded Robin Hood origin story. And just because moviegoers flocked to The Avengers doesn’t mean that audiences are dying to see the big-screen characters from different franchises meeting up as a matter of course. We have no idea if audiences want cinematic universes because we have only seen one successful iteration which broke out under particular circumstances.

We have no idea how the Universal monster movies will be received, nor can we presume if a Transformers universe will strengthen or weaken the brand. We don’t have a clue if a Venom movie is a good idea or if teaming up G.I. Joe with M.A.S.K. is the key to rejuvenating the G.I. Joe franchise. We don’t even know if Warner Bros. was successful in their DCEU franchise beyond “Hey, we’ve got another Batman movie!” Hollywood may end up spending much of the 2010's chasing a concept in which audiences have no real interest.

Yes, there may be some good films and some big hits to come from these pursuits. But what’s fascinating is that Hollywood has gone all in, at the potential expense of already successful/promising stand-alone franchises because one very particular franchise was hugely successful.

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