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Good Or Bad? When a Movie Franchise Changes Direction

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When Horror Movie Franchises Change Direction

Horror franchises typically produce diminishing returns as they go on, both creatively and financially. Once a film studio realizes they have a hit on their hands, they quickly start to churn out sequels at a rapid pace in an attempt to make as much money as possible while the franchise is still popular. When a studio has realized that they have milked a franchise for all it is worth, they sometimes try to try a fresh approach and make an installment that is completely different than what came before it. Other times, studios will try to get ahead of themselves and not make a sequel that is just more of the same. Several of the biggest franchises in horror movie history have attempted this approach, so we thought we would take a look at some of them and see what worked and what didn’t about those films. As many of you may know, sometimes people just want more of the same. If a film strays from the formula too much (as is the case with films like Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Friday the 13th: A New Beginning), the backlash from audiences and box office returns* may be so severe that the studio decides to go right back to what they were doing before.

*All box office returns listed below have been adjusted for inflation. So the $22.9 million Friday the 13th: A New Beginning made in 1985 will be written in 2015 dollars: $50.6 million. An inflation calculator was used to convert the numbers.

Remove the Villain

What do you do when you supposedly permanently kill off the centerpiece of your franchise but still want to make a sequel? Leave them out! The two biggest examples (and possibly only, if I’m not mistaken) of this are the aforementioned Halloween III: Season of the Witch and Friday the 13thA New Beginning. Both films were critically maligned at the times of their release and brought in significantly less box office than their predecessors.

Let’s look at the reasoning behind these films. in 1984, Paramount Pictures was looking to end their beloved slasher franchise which, at the time, had only been around for four years. After touting Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter as, you guessed it, the final chapter in the Friday the 13th series, they thought they would be done with the franchise. Unfortunately (or fortunately from a monetary standpoint), The Final Chapter would go on to gross $75.3 million domestically, making it the third-highest grossing film in the franchise (the highest would be the original film, with $114 million). Paramount couldn’t pass up an opportunity to make another sequel, but they had just killed off their star villain. Their idea was to create a new trilogy without Jason, but still center it around Friday the 13th. Unfortunately, ill will was created between Paramount and audiences when they didn’t make that fact very clear. The trailer legitimately promises Jason’s return, something audiences wouldn’t get until 1986.

Needless to say, audiences were not happy. Despite the fact that the film boasts the highest body count in the franchise (a whopping 21 deaths), the highest amount of bare breasts (director Danny Steinmann got his start in the porn industry) and the most frequent use of drugs, it couldn’t make up for the fact that Jason wasn’t in the film. Maybe fan response would have been better if the advertisements hadn’t been so misleading, but it’s possible fans were never going to accept a Friday the 13th movie without Jason Voorhees.

What is mind-boggling about the direction A New Beginning takes is that a spin-off was heavily insinuated at the end of The Final Chapter, with little Tommy Jarvis (Corey Feldman) giving a mischievous look to the camera in the film’s final shot. Rather than go the logical route and follow Tommy’s descent into madness in A New Beginning, the film makes an abrupt departure and has the killer by a random ambulance driver Roy, who snapped after seeing the corpse of his mentally handicapped son.

The film isn’t highly regarded among horror fans and critics alike, and it’s not difficult to understand why. Overall, the film doesn’t really work. I still find it enjoyable, but this is clearly a case when trying something new didn’t work out for a film franchise. A New Beginning will forever be the red-headed stepchild of the Friday the 13th franchise. While it does have somewhat of a cult following among Friday fans, it’s too often looked over in

The same can be said of Halloween III: Season of the Witch. After Halloween II took in less than half of the original Halloween‘s budget ($66.7 million to the original’s massive $171.5 million), director John Carpenter and producer Debra Hill thought it would be a good idea to turn the franchise into an anthology series. This may have seemed like a good idea (and judging by the quality of the sequels after Season of the Witch, I think it was), but once again, audiences just walked out pissed off. What is odd about their reaction though is that Universal made it blatantly obvious in their advertisements that Michael Myers would not, in fact, be in the film.

Halloween III received largely negative reviews upon its release, though recently it has developed somewhat of a cult following. At the time though, it was pretty much hated by everyone and ended up only bringing in $35.5 million domestically.

Halloween III separates itself from the first two films in the Halloween franchise much better than Friday the 13th: A New Beginning separates itself from the first three films in the Friday the 13th franchise. It’s capable of standing on its own and it’s also a better film. It’s no Halloween, to be sure, but it’s still a solid film that has aged well, which is more than can be said for Friday the 13th: A New Beginning.

Still, box office returns at the time of each film’s  release suggest that removing the villain from a franchise is not the best thing to do if you want the film to make money. Since the victims typically rotate in those films, the villain is the only constant in a franchise. If you remove that, then your audience has no relationship to anything in the film. Had those films come out today, audiences probably still would have been disappointed, which is why future horror franchises haven’t attempted this again. Scream switches out its villains, but at the end of the day it’s still Ghostface. Saw, which contains seven films in its franchise killed off its villain at the end of its third installment, but kept him around in flashbacks for the remaining four films.

Overall, it’s probably not a great idea to go this route when deciding to move the franchise in a new direction.

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A journalist for Bloody Disgusting since 2015, Trace writes film reviews and editorials, as well as co-hosts Bloody Disgusting's Horror Queers podcast, which looks at horror films through a queer lens. He has since become dedicated to amplifying queer voices in the horror community, while also injecting his own personal flair into film discourse. Trace lives in Austin, TX with his husband and their two dogs. Find him on Twitter @TracedThurman

Editorials

‘Leprechaun Returns’ – The Charm of the Franchise’s Legacy Sequel

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leprechaun returns

The erratic Leprechaun franchise is not known for sticking with a single concept for too long. The namesake (originally played by Warwick Davis) has gone to L.A., Las Vegas, space, and the ‘hood (not once but twice). And after an eleven-year holiday since the Davis era ended, the character received a drastic makeover in a now-unmentionable reboot. The critical failure of said film would have implied it was time to pack away the green top hat and shillelagh, and say goodbye to the nefarious imp. Instead, the Leprechaun series tried its luck again.

The general consensus for the Leprechaun films was never positive, and the darker yet blander Leprechaun: Origins certainly did not sway opinions. Just because the 2014 installment took itself seriously did not mean viewers would. After all, creator Mark Jones conceived a gruesome horror-comedy back in the early nineties, and that format is what was expected of any future ventures. So as horror legacy sequels (“legacyquels”) became more common in the 2010s, Leprechaun Returns followed suit while also going back to what made the ‘93 film work. This eighth entry echoed Halloween (2018) by ignoring all the previous sequels as well as being a direct continuation of the original. Even ardent fans can surely understand the decision to wipe the slate clean, so to speak.

Leprechaun Returns “continued the [franchise’s] trend of not being consistent by deciding to be consistent.” The retconning of Steven Kostanski and Suzanne Keilly’s film was met with little to no pushback from the fandom, who had already become accustomed to seeing something new and different with every chapter. Only now the “new and different” was familiar. With the severe route of Origins a mere speck in the rearview mirror, director Kotanski implemented a “back to basics” approach that garnered better reception than Zach Lipovsky’s own undertaking. The one-two punch of preposterous humor and grisly horror was in full force again.

LEPRECHAUN

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

With Warwick Davis sitting this film out — his own choice — there was the foremost challenge of finding his replacement. Returns found Davis’ successor in Linden Porco, who admirably filled those blood-stained, buckled shoes. And what would a legacy sequel be without a returning character? Jennifer Aniston obviously did not reprise her final girl role of Tory Redding. So, the film did the next best thing and fetched another of Lubdan’s past victims: Ozzie, the likable oaf played by Mark Holton. Returns also created an extension of Tory’s character by giving her a teenage daughter, Lila (Taylor Spreitler).

It has been twenty-five years since the events of the ‘93 film. The incident is unknown to all but its survivors. Interested in her late mother’s history there in Devil’s Lake, North Dakota, Lila transferred to the local university and pledged a sorority — really the only one on campus — whose few members now reside in Tory Redding’s old home. The farmhouse-turned-sorority-house is still a work in progress; Lila’s fellow Alpha Epsilon sisters were in the midst of renovating the place when a ghost of the past found its way into the present.

The Psycho Goreman and The Void director’s penchant for visceral special effects is noted early on as the Leprechaun tears not only into the modern age, but also through poor Ozzie’s abdomen. The portal from 1993 to 2018 is soaked with blood and guts as the Leprechaun forces his way into the story. Davis’ iconic depiction of the wee antagonist is missed, however, Linden Porco is not simply keeping the seat warm in case his predecessor ever resumes the part. His enthusiastic performance is accentuated by a rotten-looking mug that adds to his innate menace.

LEPRECHAUN RETURNS sequel

Pictured: Taylor Spreitler, Pepi Sonuga, and Sai Bennett as Lila, Katie and Rose in Leprechaun Returns.

The obligatory fodder is mostly young this time around. Apart from one luckless postman and Ozzie — the premature passing of the latter character removed the chance of caring about anyone in the film — the Leprechaun’s potential prey are all college aged. Lila is this story’s token trauma kid with caregiver baggage; her mother thought “monsters were always trying to get her.” Lila’s habit of mentioning Tory’s mental health problem does not make a good first impression with the resident mean girl and apparent alcoholic of the sorority, Meredith (Emily Reid). Then there are the nicer but no less cursorily written of the Alpha Epsilon gals: eco-conscious and ex-obsessive Katie (Pepi Sonuga), and uptight overachiever Rose (Sai Bennett). Rounding out the main cast are a pair of destined-to-die bros (Oliver Llewellyn Jenkins, Ben McGregor). Lila and her peers range from disposable to plain irritating, so rooting for any one of them is next to impossible. Even so, their overstated personalities make their inevitable fates more satisfying.

Where Returns excels is its death sequences. Unlike Jones’ film, this one is not afraid of killing off members of the main cast. Lila, admittedly, wears too much plot armor, yet with her mother’s spirit looming over her and the whole story — comedian Heather McDonald put her bang-on Aniston impersonation to good use as well as provided a surprisingly emotional moment in the film — her immunity can be overlooked. Still, the other characters’ brutal demises make up for Lila’s imperviousness. The Leprechaun’s killer set-pieces also happen to demonstrate the time period, seeing as he uses solar panels and a drone in several supporting characters’ executions. A premortem selfie and the antagonist’s snarky mention of global warming additionally add to this film’s particular timestamp.

Critics were quick to say Leprechaun Returns did not break new ground. Sure, there is no one jetting off to space, or the wacky notion of Lubdan becoming a record producer. This reset, however, is still quite charming and entertaining despite its lack of risk-taking. And with yet another reboot in the works, who knows where the most wicked Leprechaun ever to exist will end up next.


Horror contemplates in great detail how young people handle inordinate situations and all of life’s unexpected challenges. While the genre forces characters of every age to face their fears, it is especially interested in how youths might fare in life-or-death scenarios.

The column Young Blood is dedicated to horror stories for and about teenagers, as well as other young folks on the brink of terror.

Leprechaun Returns movie

Pictured: Linden Porco as The Leprechaun in Leprechaun Returns.

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