Franchise blockbusters displace story with a storyworld assembled from licensing agreements

Evidence

The first two case studies analyze derivative texts at the level of the lyric and the scene, respectively, but here, the level of analysis is the storyworld. In franchise films like Who Framed Roger Rabbit, Space Jam, The Matrix, Ready Player One, The Lego Movie, and Wreck-It Ralph, narrative and character are largely set aside. Instead, worldbuilding is privileged, and franchise aspirations, licensing contracts, and IP management are given precedence. The storyworlds of these “brandscape blockbusters” are assembled out of dozens, even hundreds, of licensing agreements that patch together pop culture references and paid promotions into a quilt of references, brands, and nostalgia. The audience experiences a sort of road movie through a futuristic brandscape, but these films achieve an odd sense of realism unseen in other forms. Ours is a time of unending brand assault, with advertisers offered entrance to so many aspects of our lives. Stories often offer us escape, whereas these films confront us with the endgame of allowing corporate interests to fully determine our shared culture. Licensing given life and merchandising made material, derivative film presages the dystopian virtual reality, metaverse, and artificial intelligence systems that are now being offered by Silicon Valley. — Andrew deWaard, Derivative Media, 54

Categorization

• XREF: Links to the reader’s own essay ‘Grafting & Growth’ — both treat corporate-legal structures (licensing here, root grafts there) as the hidden infrastructure that shapes surface form.
• SEED: The observation that brandscape blockbusters achieve ‘an odd sense of realism’ — audiences see their actual branded lives, not escapism — is a strong essay angle on why such films feel authentic rather than cynical.