Hollywood shifted to franchises and IP to win international markets

Evidence

The shift toward IP intensified as studios increasingly relied on international markets to offset declining American movie theater attendance. Sequels and franchises dominated because of their universal appeal. The Marvel Cinematic Universe launched with Iron Man in 2008. The Twilight saga began the same year, spawning five box office hits. Animated films like Despicable Me (2010), with its toy-friendly Minions and Pharrell Williams score, were engineered for global success. By 2011, nine out of the ten top-grossing films were sequels. The lone exception, The Smurfs, was based on the popular 1980s Saturday morning cartoon. — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 215

Categorization

• XREF: Direct evidence for the book’s ‘omnivore monoculture’ thesis — the flattening of cinema into universally-appealing franchise product, which the reader needs to state and then rebut.
• QUESTION: Useful data point for the counter-case: if nine of ten top films were sequels, what does that say about the era’s signature — are sequels ‘blankness’ or actually a recognizable monocultural signature?