Look, we all love the movies. They’re a place for passion and creativity to go at it on the big screen, giving us plenty of eye candy and entertainment to relax to for two hours. Heck, with streaming services like Netflix and Hulu providing original content now, we may not even have to drive all the way to the theaters to catch a flick in the future.
But sometimes enough is enough: people like sequels, but they also like something fresh. Many new productions spring up each and every year, but they seem to get overshadowed by dormant franchises that continue to milk their IP until audiences stop showing up.
The indie market was once a place where filmmakers could craft new experiences for interested viewers like Steven Soderbergh’s Sex Lies, and Videotape, Tarantino’s Pulp Fiction, or Kimberly Peirce’s Boys Don’t Cry. Now, however, it’s just seemingly blockbuster after blockbuster, adhering to a similar recipe without much divergence, with even so-called “risky” films like La La Land being throwbacks to older formulas.
Until the day comes when producers get the idea of green-lighting more challenging movies, here are seven franchises we believe are being treated like indispensable cash cows that need to end before they become unwatchable. You may disagree with our opinion, but that’s what the comments section is for.