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In a world with non-stop sequels, reboots, remakes, and cinematic universes it seems the traditional "movie sequel" may be dead. With the 2nd installment in the Knives Out franchise, Glass Onion, it seems that studios will do anything to force a cinematic universe into existence. Mysteries like Knives Out used to be self contained stories, but when Glass Onion was released with the subtitle A Knives Out Mystery, it proves Netflix is once again trying to establish the next great cinematic universe akin to Marvel or DC.
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Holland, he bought this place in the 80s from a Pakistani real estate billionaire
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Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! With that Kentucky Fried Foghorn Leghorn drawl
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Today, it seems every film is produced with an eye on making a franchise
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There's no such thing as standalone stories with a beginning, middle, and end
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It's all universe building, video game tie-ins, and TV shows expanding on the mythology
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which, simply put, means that the true movie sequel is dead. Wait, hold on
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What just happened? Knives Out, released in 2019, is a throwback to the classic Agatha Christie
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whodunit movies of yesteryear. The film was a box office smash and combined the best of what old Hollywood had to offer
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with a star-studded cast and a brilliantly constructed screenplay. The picture introduces Daniel Craig's Benoit Blanc as the world's greatest detective
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who must solve a seemingly impossible murder case. So who the f*** is that
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From the devilishly charming performances by actors such as Chris Evans and Ana de Armas
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to twists and turns that could practically give an audience whiplash, Knives Out succeeded in bringing back a virtually forgotten genre into mainstream cinematic
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prominence. And just like any original film that exceeds expectations, Netflix purchased the rights
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all to create yet another filmic franchise, and with any luck, a cinematic universe
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For those not in the note, there is a tradition of murder mystery novels and films where each
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sequel that's produced is a standalone case, and the only real reoccurring character is the detective
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And for Johnson and Craig, it was clear from the jump that they wanted this character to be
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Benoit Blanc. And thanks to Craig's effortless charisma, silky smooth southern accent, and rakish
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aplomb, it looks like they'll get the opportunity to produce many stories following their ingenious
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co A donut hole in a donut hole But we must look a little closer The follow film One Glass Onion A Knives Out Mystery was just recently released from Netflix and it follows a similar trajectory to the first film
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It's a standalone story where the audience does not need to have any specific connection to Benoit, the world
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or the sprawling ensemble cast to be able to enjoy the story. However, if this picture has proved one thing
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it's that true movie sequels are dead. Glass Onion is what this film should have been titled
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but it wasn't because Netflix was worried that a general audience wouldn't know it was a sequel to Knives Out
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Making a good movie isn't the litmus test for whether something succeeds or fails these days
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Netflix paid over $450 million in order to have a marquee name
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that would draw in new subscribers, not just make a good film. It's so dumb
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It's so dumb, it's brilliant. No! It's just dumb! The Benoit Blanc movies are a direct homage to the aforementioned Christie's Hercule Perrault stories
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As as such, this new installment follows him as he's summoned to an island paradise by a reclusive tech giant who wants to throw a murder mystery party for his friends
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Only, shock of all shocks, an actual murder happens during this island getaway
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There's exactly one scene in this film that builds off of the character that we saw in Knives Out, one featuring Hugh Grant as Benoit Blanc's husband
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Other than that, the film is completely standalone in the same exact way that the Perrault stories are
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And you know what none of the titles of his adventures have in them? a Hercule Poirot mystery, which leads us back to Rian Johnson's Glass Onion, A Knives Out Mystery
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When asked about the title in a piece for Vulture, he explained, I tried hard to make them self-contained. Honestly, I'm pissed off that we have a
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Knives Out Mystery in the title. You know, I want it to just be called Glass Onion
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And this underscores the exact point, even when it's what the audiences want and thematically
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linked back to the spiritual forebears in the genre. Today's industry won't let a film
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not be a part of something bigger. It so dumb The brand awareness is a necessity at this point not an added positive We don need a Benoit Blanc begins and we don need a massive mystery Benoit Origins
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and we definitely don't need the subtitle A Knives Out Mystery. This studio mindset is a direct byproduct of the hyper-sequelized filmic landscape of the late 80s
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90s, and early 2000s. In the 80s, the film industry pivoted away from auteur-driven pieces of art
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and leaned into more commercially minded pieces of entertainment. During this shift, something about how the studios calculated the likelihood of success of a project changed
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With every successive decade, two words became more and more valuable. Brand awareness
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And for better or for worse, the MCU capitalized off this trend and propelled it to an almost unthinkable level
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In 2009, when Disney bought Marvel for $4 billion, no one could have anticipated that they'd have virtually taken over Hollywood close to a decade
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later. With 30-something films, countless TV shows, and a near never-ending tidal wave of content
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coming down the pike, it doesn't seem to be letting up anytime soon. And that effect can be seen
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directly in how the producers of today attempt to build every film project so that it's constructed
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with sequels in mind, and at best, a cinematic universe. The Conjuring has eight films in its
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universe. John Wick, Star Wars, Dune, Fast and Furious, they all have ambitions of making vast
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tapestries of interconnected networks of characters to thrill audiences with. Stories that flow one
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into the next, chapters of a sweeping narrative. And there's nothing wrong with this style of
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filmmaking, it's just usually called television. Studios don't make standalone sequels anymore
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thus production companies and studios are incentivized to chase franchise money. This
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initially manifested as anything you can put a two, three, or four on the end of
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And now, it's a subtitle that hints at an interconnected universe of a wider tapestry of stories
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A Star Wars story X Origins and Fast and Furious Presents Today if a studio film doesn pull in a half a billion dollars did the movie really ever come out Of the 10 highest movies released in 2022
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all of them were sequels. And all but two of them are legacy brands based on characters that have
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existed for multiple decades. From a business perspective, it's readily apparent why producers
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and studio executives are attempting to build off a nascent brand awareness to activate potential
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audiences because moviegoers have shown that's what they're willing to pay for. However, the
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tragedy of the case at hand is that the quality of film projects and film-going experiences is
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degrading with every passing year. It's ironic that the big-budget theatrical experience is
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slowly devolving into an episodically-fueled sequential narrative experience, while TV is undergoing an immense period of revitalization and reinvention. New, bold, and exciting things
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are being done on the small screen, while the cineplex, the place that used to create indelible
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and iconic images, is slowly degrading into a swamp of cool blue color correction and superhero
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sky lasers. Knives Out and Glass Onion are two supremely well-constructed films. They have a cast
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of the biggest actors on Earth and a director who knows exactly what he's doing. So why wasn't that
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enough to just title the film Glass Onion? Because movie studios aren't really in the business of
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selling movies. They're in the business of maintaining attention. They want you to plop
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down in front of your phone or tablet and stream for as long as possible in the hopes that the
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infinite void they've constructed will in some way recoup their investment by pulling enough
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people into their orbit. And the easiest way to gobble up your attention is to springboard off
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a brand you're aware of. That's why true sequels don't get made more. The studios have conditioned
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people to hunger for connectivity and intertextuality from their media. And now
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when something doesn't have it, we don't show up. So what does this mean about the filmmaking industry
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going forward? It says that we live in a brave new world, one that it doesn't look like any of us
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are quite prepared for
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