Earlier this month, Disney announced casting plans for a fourth “High School Musical” film. Shortly afterwards, they announced that “Big Hero 6” would be made into an animated TV series, which is slated to air the same year that the “Tangled” TV series is set to premiere. Oh, and “Frozen 2” is happening as well. Why, Disney? You already make millions – if not billions – of dollars each year – do you really need to slap together all these sequels and spin-offs to make easy money? Why can’t you just tell a good story and move on to the next one? It makes me wonder if Disney is running out of ideas – see thoughts on that here.
As much as we loved these movies growing up, we don’t need a “High School Musical 4.” It’s been eight years since the last one came out, and “Senior Year” wrapped things up nicely, just like how “Toy Story 3” had a good wrap-up (of course, we know what’s going on there – only one more year until “Toy Story 4” hits theaters). It’s always the fourth (or sometimes third) film where the series ends up jumping the shark. No need to overdo it – let them end on a high note before they start to suck. Crappy sequels, spin-offs, reboots, etc. for movies we loved growing up can ruin our childhood.
Hollywood studios are out to make money – that’s always been their game – but what happened to classic, simple movie-making? When did the industry reduce itself to movie-milking – churning out the same movie over and over, milking our favorite franchises for every last dollar they can get, while leaving us with a trash heap? Sometimes we punish producers for doing this by either skipping the film, or leaving a bad review for it, but they keep cranking out more and more every year.
The idea of milking the franchises is overrated. Movies should grow old naturally with passing years since the release, not get old from being overdone with one installment too many. The audience may want more, but if they’re overstuffed on one thing, they’ll get sick from it. You can make money by telling a good story, but then leave it and tell another good story to make more money. Film studios can make money either way, but then at least we’d have two great films instead of one with a sub-par sequel – so let’s get some new stuff on the silver (or small) screen.