For years, the Marvel Cinematic Universe was at the top of the mountain. To date, it remains the most successful film franchise in cinematic history, and single-handedly kicked off a superhero boom we are still living through.
And Marvel is still very successful, but I think there’s a sense among a lot of people that enthusiasm is starting to wane. New Marvel movies aren’t as big a deal as they once were, and the Marvel TV shows on Disney+ have been hit and miss. Even Disney CEO Bob Iger has said that the sheer number of Marvel movies and shows out there have “diluted focus and attention.”
It’s an example of franchise fatigue in action. And that could be a danger for other studios who have been trying to build their own cinematic universes. Take Warner Bros. Discovery, which currently has one Game of Thrones prequel series on the air (House of the Dragon), and another in development (A Knight of the Seven Kingdoms). Is the Game of Thrones universe in danger of becoming overstuffed?
Is there a Game of Thrones cinematic universe, and if there is, is that a good thing?
If you ask HBO CEO Casey Bloys, the Game of Thrones universe isn’t in danger of franchise fatigue. During a press conference yesterday, he outlined how his approach will keep that from happening “Remember a couple years ago everybody was kind of obsessed with, every time we would put a Game Of Thrones script into development, ‘oh my God, they’re doing another one, another one, another one.’ And I would always say… I don’t have a plan where I go, ‘Okay, I need three Game Of Thrones on the schedule by this time.’ I’ve always said, we’re gonna do the shows that we think are good,” Bloys said, per The A.V. Club. “So after the first show, we developed a ton of scripts, and House Of The Dragon came up being the one we felt most excited by. That’s kind of how we approach everything.”
It’s true that HBO has had a lot of Game of Thrones spinoffs in development at one time or another, from a show about Nymeria of the Rhoynar to one about Corlys Velaryon to an animated show about the empire of Yi Ti and more. But it’s also true that they haven’t spit out shows just because. They even made a whole pilot for a show called Blood Moon, which was set thousands of years before Game of Thrones, but killed the project when it wasn’t up to their standards. Those don’t seem like the actions of a studio willing to build a cinematic universe at any cost.
“f you let quality be your guide… that’s a pretty good way to balance it,” Bloys said. “I think not starting with a preset, ‘We need five tentpoles’… any sort of prescribed amount to fill, and just focusing on quality is a good way to do it.”
HBO CEO takes aim at Marvel
Bloys also took aim at Marvel, who is kind of a punching bag right now when it comes to franchise fatigue. “I think tentpole fatigue comes from when you’re telling the same story over and over within the same universe,” he said. “I think unfortunately Marvel, as good as their shows are, there’s probably been a lot of them. And I think that’s one of the advantages that we’ve got at Warner Bros. is it’s not just one set of stories, there’s a lot of things you can go to.”
It is a little rich for an executive at Warner Bros. Discovery to be talking aim at Marvel when WBD is responsible for the DC Cinematic Universe, which has famously had trouble getting off the ground. Although to be fair to Bloys, he’s in charge of the TV side of things and has nothing to do with the movies. “I think the key even within DC is trying to tell different stories, different styles and not do the same type of show over and over and over again,” Bloys said. “I would say, Peacemaker is a very different show tonally than Penguin. So, there’s not a uniformity to storytelling and I think that helps…I don’t know that it’s necessarily tentpole fatigue as much as it is a sameness of storytelling.”
Game of Thrones isn’t the only franchise that Bloys is managing. Max is making a Dune show. They’re making a show set in the same world as Stephen King’s IT. I think Bloys is mostly saying the right things here. I hope he practices what he preaches.
HBO CEO apologizes for using “secret army” to attack critics online
Speaking of Bloys, he made headlines earlier this week for a much more embarrassing reason: it came out that he spearheaded an effort to fight back against people who were critical of HBO shows online. Basically, he would find some comment he didn’t like, be it from a professional critic on Twitter or just a random person on an article, come up with a response, and then lauder it through a sock puppet account. It was some extraordinary pettey stuff.
Bloys addressed the story at the press conference. “For those of you who know me, you know I am a programming executive who is very, very passionate about the shows that we decide to do and the people who do them and the people who work on them,” he said, per Deadline. “I want the shows to be great. I want people to love them. I want you all to love them. It’s very, very important to me what you think of all the shows.”
"So when you think of that mindset, and think of 2020 and 2021, I am home, working from home, spending an unhealthy amount of time scrolling through Twitter and I come up with a very, very dumb idea to vent my frustration. Obviously, six tweets over a year and a half is not very effective. But I do apologize to the people who were mentioned in the leaked emails and texts. Obviously, nobody wants to be part of a story they had nothing to do with.But also as many of you know, I have progressed over the past couple of years to using DMs. Now, when I take issue with something in a review or take issue with something I see, I DM many of you and many of you are gracious enough to engage with me in a back and forth. It’s a probably a much healthier way to go about this."
Once again, I think Bloys is mostly saying the right things here, but still, the idea of high-level executive spending their time workshopping bad faith responses to random commenters on the internet is…maybe best to keep an eye on him.
All the stuff about Bloys fighting back against random mean comments came out as part of a lawsuit filed by an ex-HBO employee named Sully Temori, who is alleging retaliation, discrimination and harassment. On the whole, all of that is a lot more serious than Bloys’ getting riled up over comments. We’ll see how it progresses.
To stay up to date on everything fantasy, science fiction, and WiC, follow our all-encompassing Facebook page and sign up for our exclusive newsletter.
Get HBO, Starz, Showtime and MORE for FREE with a no-risk, 7-day free trial of Amazon Channels