For this article, we will look back over other sequel examples that have changed genre from the first. We will analyse whether Joker: Folie à Deux can succeed and look at other franchises that could benefit from taking a different track.

Changing Beats

Film franchises regularly shift focus over time. By King Kong’s third feature appearance, the series had morphed from a fantasy horror adventure to sci-fi-inflected action. Aliens famously changed its series from horror to more of an action focus. Many serious series have also become more comedic and vice versa (the Evil Dead trilogy and the recent Ghostbusters films).

These genre shifts happen for many reasons (creative and financial) but do these changes land well at the box office? After all, it can be alienating for fans to see a movie series built on one genre’s principles suddenly shift to another. While also seeming confusing for general audiences.

Generally, it’s impossible to say. Sometimes a genre shift can go down well if the prior film was already successful (Alien and Aliens) or if it shakes up a fairly predictable franchise (Ghostbusters). However, even films with solid fanbases can see a genre change undercut their success financially (Return To Oz) or in terms of reception (Halloween 3). So there’s no guarantee that a genre change would automatically yield failure or success for a sequel.

A Different Devil

But regardless of financial success will this change suit Joker’s dark world? Well from a talent perspective, it could certainly work. Both Lady Gaga and Joaquin Phoenix have experience with singing and dramatic roles (A Star Is Born and Walk The Line). Director Todd Phillips and cinematographer Lawrence Sher also have experience making films based on music. Phillips directed Phish’s concert movie Bittersweet Motel and Sher shot a Dua Lipa music video. So the talent is there to make the film work.

Additionally, the series change can work tonally. One of the first film’s highlights was the stair dance sequence, which shows that music and theatricality are nothing alien to this Joker. Joker also trades on us not knowing whether something is real or in Arthur Fleck’s head, making for a perfect excuse to make the film a musical.

This doesn’t mean it will definitely be a success. Musicals are struggling to draw box office numbers, genre changes are unsure things in franchises and the conceit could not work from a story perspective. This merely means a genre change isn’t necessarily a bad idea.

Change The Record

Lastly, for fun, here are three film franchises that could benefit from a genre change. 

Batman (Main Series)

For decades, it feels like DC has been afraid to let Batman have some fun in his main cinematic releases (only seeming to lighten up in spinoffs). With every new adaptation upping the Bat-misery a comedic Batman film would be very welcome now. All they would need to do is have Batman and a version of Robin fight a villain without the fate of Gotham being at stake and have a laugh with the universe.

Knives Out

The Knives Out series has successfully updated the murder mystery formula for modern audiences but unlike other franchises it hasn’t gone outside its genre wheelhouse (like A Haunting in Venice). Writer/director Rian Johnson has often upended expectations, and with the series having fantastic casts and social commentary the films could easily switch to another sub-genre while keeping it based in modern times so long as it has something to say. Imagine Benoit Blanc investigating a musician’s death leading into a musical story about how the music industry exploits radical images for profit. Who wouldn’t watch that?

Halloween

After so many lacklustre sequels and requels that all boil down to Michael Myers stabbing people Halloween should return to its long-abandoned anthology idea. Just give the brand name to an up-and-coming creative team and let them do something different in any horror sub-genre they want.

Do you think Joker Folie à Deux’s genre change will work well or hinder its success? And what film franchises do you think would benefit from a genre change?

Also Read: The Perfect Batman: A Look At The Actor & Director Duos Behind The Films

The post Reinventing the Franchise: Will Joker: Folie à Deux’s Musical Twist Succeed? appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.

Evolution

Professor Grodal makes a case for evolutionary psychology as to why we have the genres we do and why they have persisted. While The Iliad (an ancient Greek Poem) is thousands of years old and written in a culture drastically different to our own we can see that it has many elements that would overlap with modern storytelling – action, fighting, love, revenge etc. Grodal argues this is because evolution has made us susceptible to these sorts of stories and essentially we’re the same people we were when The Iliad was created – a few thousand years is nothing when compared to evolution.

For Grodal there are three basic emotional structures that help make-up, and then react to genres

• The Reptilian Brain – fear, anger, lust, seeking
• Caregiving – love, pair-bonding, family
• Separation/Grief – dealing with death and loss

These three systems are not mutually exclusive and often overlap, this is particularly true of Caregiving and Separation/Grief but you can find films that hit all three systems.

Humans Are Weird Animals

Unlike many animals, humans care for their young for years as human infants are essentially helpless and utterly dependent on caregivers. If we want our DNA to continue in future generates, which the Theory of Evolution says we do, then we must protect our children. Evolution has hammered into humans that caring for their offspring is of paramount importance, so many films also have this message. Films are full of parents making sacrifices, up to and including dying, to protect children. Sophie’s Choice is considered so heart-wrenching because the choice will lead to the death of a child.

For most animals it is only the female that bears the burden of caring for children, humans are different in that males continue to provide for them, they will protect them and hunt or gather food. Due to the huge cost of raising children in terms of resources this makes evolutionary sense. This lead to a very strong pair-bond between parents and a successful pair bond is very important. So we have romances, where finding true love is amongst the most important things in all of life. There are few films that lack any romantic component, with “love interest” being a familiar description of a character. Hot Fuzz is one of the few films I can think of that has no romantic component and with this film, there was a lot of focus on the “bromance” between the two lead characters.

Saving Private Nemo

What is the defining moment of the film Bambi? I’m sure most people will think of the moment when Bambi’s mother dies. Finding Nemo is entirely about reuniting a parent and child. The film Aliens add a whole layer of emotion and drama by introducing a child for Ripley to bond with and then protect. Separation and loss in films can be emotionally devastating because these are terrible evolutionary outcomes. How will Nemo survive without his father? How will Marlin survive without his son? This is already after the genuinely horrific deaths of Nemo’s mother and siblings. When the two are reunited there is absolute joy. Sometimes the sacrifice of parents for children can be widened to a whole tribe, and today that could mean your country, and again, nobly sacrificing yourself for others who are part of your “tribe” is a staple of films and is the entire premise of Saving Private Ryan.

The Reptilian Brain

Then there is the influence of the “reptilian” brain, the part of the brain that developed first, that we share with reptiles. The four emotional systems we share with reptiles are anger, fear, lust and seeking – as in looking for food, for a mate, for a predator etc.. At least three of these factors are integral parts of action films – and often lust gets thrown in as well. Seeking, basically looking for what you want/need is present in action as well as crime and mysteries.

Action, crime and mysteries are also important in what Grodal calls HTTOFF Scenarios – Hiding, Tracking, to Trap, being Trapped, Observing, Fighting and Fleeing. In these scenarios, the protagonist is constantly working out the interactions between themselves and the world and other agents within it. Grodal points out that while few people watching films in the modern world will have to regularly fight, flee etc., those mental processes are still within us. A lot of children’s games involve HTTOFF scenarios, so Hide and Seek or play-fighting, it is enjoyable to recreate these situations in a safe way.

Rituals

Films can act as shared, ritualistic experiences, so that seeing death, grief etc on screen prepares us for when they happen in real-life. This can also be true of comedy, a lot of comedy consists of bad or embarrassing things happening but in a film that’s okay, we know it’s not real, and in a sense is a form of playing and pretending.

An Alternative View…

A little while ago on this site was published an article “The Formula of a Successful Film“, which looked at a different study which analysed thousands of films and found that they tend to fall into distinct categories like Rags to Riches, Cinderella and Icarus, describing how they handle emotion and the protagonist’s journey. So an Icarus film builds to high positive emotion and then drops down with a sad, or sort of sad ending. The most successful financially was found to be Man In A Hole. This is where a person falls at the beginning, leading to success/triumph at the end, the classic example being The Godfather. Michael starts happy, faces disaster and ends up winning. This research suggests something different going on to Grodal’s, here it is the journey of the character(s) that is crucial and evidently seeing someone triumph over adversity is very satisfying.

Looking at all of this research I think potentially the film that should have been the most successful and critically acclaimed was Liam Neeson’s Taken. For Grodal it satisfies all three emotional systems – action, caregiving and separation and matches The Man In A Hole dynamic. While successful enough to spawn two sequels and a whole genre of older action hero films I don’t think Taken managed those heights.

Also Read: The Formula For A Successful Film

The post The Human Brain Is Hard-Wired To Think In Genres appeared first on Big Picture Film Club.