Are IP-based movie productions better served by engaging auteur directors who will control every aspect of the film, or do such projects reap greater benefits from a more mercenary approach?
Bradford Walker offers a definite answer and compares DC Comics’ movies to Marvel’s as an example.
Following on from a previous Midnight’s Edge video on why non-Marvel cinematic universes routinely fail, we see another piece of the puzzle become brick-to-the-face obvious: producer-centric editorial control, returning the Old Hollywood practice of studio moguls being the shot-callers to a new context with a new justification for doing so. We see this sort of thing being behind how Lucasfilm runs their film franchise also, as Kathleen Kennedy is not afraid to remind directors that they are hired guns doing Work For Hire and not true partners working as collaborators.
In short, directors and writers are hired to produce a branded product possessing their signature style within editorial limits. Lucasfilm wants a Star Wars-branded product version of (director)’s style, in the genre said director is famous for and reliably delivers to market. The same applies to Marvel, and when directors realize what their limits are within such considerations they actually don’t seem to mind too much; the same applies to writers, most of whom know that the realities of the business drive things like changing a character from the source material depiction to something more market-friendly (e.g. Doctor Strange and The Ancient One), so they keep calm and carry on.
The folks who are failing are those that cannot admit that this is the case and adjust their personal and corporate operations to adapt to reality. DC can’t do this, and neither can Warner Brothers more generally, which is why Marvel (and Disney) are eating their lunch.
Star Wars is an interesting and illustrative example. The best films in the series were arguably made by hired gun directors working to Lucas’ specs rather than the installments written, produced, and directed by Lucas himself.
It’s also worth noting that the Star Wars brand has been weakening since Kennedy has given J.J. Abrams and now Rian Johnson carte blanche with the franchise.
If you’ve been reading this blog for a while, you might suspect that there’s a lesson for authors somewhere in this post. And you’d be right.
Learning how to operate a fictional setting as a brand-based business is turning into a vital skill to have for IP-based businesses such as comics, but this does scale down to the realm of SF/F publishing- but for the authors, not the publishers, so it does matter for folks who manage to find an audience with their fictional works (e.g. Larry Correia an Monster Hunter International) to pay attention to these matters going forward.
In sum: if you’re playing in someone else’s sandbox, build to spec, but don’t be afraid to do it in style.
