300/400 Hollywood Blockbuster/Franchise Creation

Note that these readings have not been updated in awhile — this course could easily be updated and maintain a similar structure. This is a one semester course, but could be adapted into 2 semesters.

Hollywood Blockbusters: Franchise Creation from Disney to Marvel

Course Description

Hollywood franchises are a pervasive part of film consumption practices and have become an important part of the decision making process for Hollywood studios and producers. The creation of a franchise has changed dramatically from Walt Disney’s conception in 1937 of a film (Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs) that could spawn a soundtrack and seven characters for toys. The world of Hollywood production is now supported by multi-film franchises and cinematic universes such as Marvel’s The Avengers collection of films. This course will study the entertainment industry to examine how franchises are restructuring the production process of the Hollywood film industry.

Required Texts:

All readings will be available through the course website.

We will be discussing parts of all films in the following franchises. You must watch at least one film in each franchise BEFORE class, but if you prefer not to be spoiled you will want to watch the entire franchise:

Back to the Future 

Star Wars

The Matrix

Lord of the Rings

The Hobbit

Pirates of the Caribbean

The Avengers (including Iron Man, Thor, and Captain America)

Course Evaluation:

  • Bi-Weekly Blogs 20%
  • Participation 10%
  • Report on Franchise 20%
  • Presentation of Course Material 10%
  • Final Essay 30%
  • Total 100%

Weekly Schedule of Readings:

Week 1: Introduction to the course.

  • No required readings

Unit 1: Blockbuster Style

Week 2: What is a Blockbuster?

  • King, Geoff. “Spectacle, Narrative, and the Spectacular Hollywood Blockbuster.” Movie Blockbusters. Julian Stringer, ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. 114-127.
  • Schatz, Thomas. “The New Hollywood.” Movie Blockbusters. Julian Stringer, ed. New York: Routledge, 2003. 15-44.

Film: Jaws (1975)

Supplementary Readings:

  • deVany, Arthur. “Big Budgets, Big Openings and Legs: Analysis of the Blockbuster Strategy.” Hollywood Economics: How Extreme Uncertainty Shapes the Film Industry. 2004. New York: Routledge, 2005. 122-138.

Week 3: High Concept

  • Wyatt, Justin. “A Critical Redefinition: The Concept of High Concept.” High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994. 1-22.
  • Wyatt, Justin. “Construction of the Image and the High Concept Style.” High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994. 23-64.

Franchise: Back to the Future

Supplementary Readings: 

  • Shone, Tom. “War Zones, High Concepts.” Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer. New York: Free Press, 2004. 174-184.

Unit 2: Franchises and Sequels

Week 4: What is a Franchise?

  • Thompson, Kristin. “Licenses to Print.” Frodo Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and Modern Hollywood. Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2007. 193-223.
  • Epstein, Edward Jay. “The Two Hollywoods.” and “Walt Disney: The Genius of the New System.” The Big Picture: Money and Power in Hollywood. New York: Random House, 2005. 3-23 and 29-35.
  • Scott, Jason. “The Character-Oriented Franchise: Promotion and Exploitation of Pre-Sold Characters in American Film, 1913-1950.” Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation. 34-43.

Film: Snow White and the 7 Dwarfs (1937)

Supplementary Readings:

  • Prince, Stephen. “Merger Mania.” A New Pot of Gold: Hollywood Under the Electronic Rainbow, 1980-1989. History of the American Cinema. Stephen Prince. Vol. 10. Charles Harpole, ed. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2000. 40-89.
  • Wyatt, Justin. “Marketing the Image: High Concept and the Development of Marketing.” High Concept: Movies and Marketing in Hollywood. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press, 1994. 109-154.

Week 5: Sequels

  • Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. “Before and After the Blockbuster: A Brief History of the Film Sequel.” Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. 15-51.
  • Diorio, Carl. “H’w’d: A sequel opportunity town.” Variety. 15 June 2003. <http://www.variety.com/artic1eNRII17887915.html?categoryid=1019&cs=l&gu ery=sequels+contract+x%20men>.
  • Earnest, Olen J. “Star Wars: A Case Study of Motion Picture Marketing.” Current Research in Film: Audiences, Economics, and Law. Ed. Bruce A Austin. Vol. 1 1985. 1-18.

Franchise: Star Wars

Supplemetary Readings:

  • Shone, Tom. “Empire State Express.” Blockbuster: How Hollywood Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Summer. New York: Free Press, 2004. 44-64.

Unit 3: Synergy

Week 6: The Structure of Modern Hollywood

  • Gomery, Douglas. “Coda: The Modern Media Conglomerate Studio.” The Hollywood Studio System. 2005. 309-317
  • Gomery, Douglas. “The Modern Hollywood Studio System.” The Hollywood Studio System: A History. London: British Film Institute Publishing, 2005. 198-225, 238-251, and 262-275. (sections on Universal, Warners, and Disney only)

Franchise: The Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit

Supplementary Readings:

  • Schatz, Tom. “The Studio System and Conglomerate Hollywood.” The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2008. 13-42.

Week 7: Synergy Gone Wild

  • Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. “Sequelizing Spectatorship and Building up the Kingdom: The Case of Pirates of the Caribbean, Or, How a Theme-Park Attraction Spawned a Multibillion-Dollar Film Franchise.” Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the Film Sequel. Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, eds. New York: State University of New York Press, 2010. 205-223.
  • Wasko, Janet. “Expanding the Industry.” How Hollywood Works. London: Sage, 2003. 154-187.

Franchise: Pirates of the Caribbean

Supplementary Readings:

  • Rombes, Nicholas. “Before and After and Right Now: Sequels in the Digital Era.” Second Takes: Critical Approaches to the Film Sequel. Carolyn Jess-Cooke and Constantine Verevis, eds. New York: State University of New York Press, 2010. 191-203.

Unit 3: Transmedia  and Transnational Production

Week 8: Transmedia

  • Jenkins, Henry. “Searching for the Origami Unicorn: The Matrix and Transmedia Storytelling.” Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide. New York: New York University Press, 2006. 93-130.
  • Schauer, Bradley. “Critics, Clones and Narrative in the Franchise Blockbuster.” New Review of Film and Television Studies. 5:2 (2007), 191-210.

Franchise: The Matrix

Supplementary Readings:

  • Mann, Denise. “Welcome to the Unregulated Wild, Wild, Digital West.” Media Industries Journal. 1:2 (2014), 30-34.

Week 9: Global Hollywood

  • Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. “Signifying Hollywood: Sequels in the Global Economy.” Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. 110-129.
  • Wasser, Frederick. “Is Hollywood America? The Transnationalism of the American Film Industry.” Critical Studies in Mass Communication. 12 (1995), 423-437.
  • Trumpbour, John. “Hollywood and the World: Export or Die.” The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2008. 209-219.
  • Pendakur, Manjunath. “Hollywood and the State: The American Film Industry Cartel in the Age of Globalization.” The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2008. 182-194.

Supplementary Readings:

  • Govil, Nitin. “India: Hollywood’s Domination, Extinction, and Re-animation (with thanks to Jurassic Park).” The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2008. 285-294.
  • McDonald, Paul. “Britain: Hollywood, UK.” The Contemporary Hollywood Film Industry. Paul McDonald and Janet Wasko, eds. Malden, Massachussetts: Blackwell, 2008. 220-231.

Presentations

Weeks 10 & 11: Mini-Conference for Student Presentations of Final Essay

Conclusions

Week 12: Marvel: Transmedia? or Capitalizing on Synergy and Fandom?

Franchise: The Avengers

Supplementary Readings:

  • Jess-Cooke, Carolyn. “‘It’s All Up to You!’: Sequelisation and User-Generated Content.” Film Sequels: Theory and Practice from Hollywood to Bollywood. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2009. 72-89.
  • Hernández-Péérez, Manuel and José Gabriel Ferraras Rodríguez. “Serial Narrative, Intertextuality, and the Role of Audiences in the Creation of a Franchise: An Analysis of the Indiana Jones Saga from a Cross-Media Perspective.” Mass Communication and Society. 17:1 (2013), 26-53.