Summer of the Spinoff

LOS ANGELES, April 16 — If in past summers Hollywood seemed to surrender its creative soul to the making of sequels, prequels, spinoffs, remakes and franchise films based on comic books, television series or video games, take a deep breath and prepare for the summer of 2002.

Between this Friday's opening of "The Scorpion King," a muscle-bound spinoff of "The Mummy" series, and the Aug. 9 unveiling of "Spy Kids 2: The Island of Lost Dreams," at least 16 movies will fall into one or more of the above categories.

"Usually, there are four or five of these movies over the course of a summer," the veteran producer Peter Abrams said. "But 16? That's a lot." At no point during the summer season will audiences be more than a week from the opening of at least one such film — whether it's "Scooby-Doo" on June 14; "The Crocodile Hunter: Collision Course" on June 28; "Halloween: Resurrection" on July 19; "Austin Powers 3" on July 26; or the granddaddy of them all, "Star Wars: Episode II — Attack of the Clones" on May 16.

"You really have to look at the success of 'Star Wars' as one of the signature enterprises in this trend," said Sean Daniel, a producer of "The Scorpion King" and a former studio production chief. "Truly, that series was — and is — the envy of everybody. And as the movie culture becomes more global, there is an added value to making movies that are part of a series or attached somehow to some title or brand that already has market recognition."

Overseas box-office grosses have become a huge factor in the release of Hollywood films, particularly franchise films. "Jurassic Park" made $357 million domestically in 1993 and another $563 million overseas, while just last year "Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone" doubled its box-office take abroad ($316 million domestically and $638 million overseas).

One studio banking on this strategy is Columbia Pictures (a division of Sony) — which will release "Spider-Man" on May 3, "Mr. Deeds" on June 28, "Men in Black 2" on July 3 and "Stuart Little 2" on July 19. Last summer, it was Universal Pictures that unleashed a sequel tsunami, with "The Mummy Returns," "Jurassic Park III" and "American Pie 2,"as well as "The Fast and the Furious," which has spawned a new series. "This is Sony's year to do what Universal did last year," the producer Robert Simonds said. "And next year, it will be Warner Brothers' turn."

While some see this trend as further evidence of Hollywood's artistic cowardice, others say it is the inevitable result of more than a decade of growing influence for studio marketing departments and corporate risk-aversion strategies.

"The two manias of the moment are to exploit franchises and build new ones," said Peter Bart, editor of Variety, "preferably something that's a family film, which are all really hot now."

Most obvious is the significance of opening weekend grosses, during which films earn a significant percentage of their eventual take. As films are able to open on more screens and as marketing campaigns aim at that release date, films that are already familiar to audiences, like sequels and other franchises, stand a better chance of breaking fast from the gates.

A related factor is the so-called day-and-date release, in which films open all over the world on the same day, to allow studios to get more impact from their United States-based promotional campaigns.

And in recent years, sequels have been helped along at the box office by videos and DVD's, which introduce the series to a wider audience.

"It used to be sequels, on average, earned about 65 percent of the gross of the original," said Geoffrey Ammer, Columbia's president of marketing. "Now, if you make a good one, you can earn even more than the original, sometimes much more."

The original "Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery" made only $54 million in 1997, while "Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me" brought in $205 million two years later. Similarly, "Rush Hour" made $141 million in 1998, while "Rush Hour 2" made $226 million last summer.

"Sometimes, you can do two or three times what you did on the original," Mr. Ammer said. "So why not go in and mine that field? It's there. If you're not doing it, somebody else is."

But most important, perhaps, is the corporate thinking that has overtaken the movie business.

And media conglomerates are perfectly positioned to exploit a potential franchise — a "Harry Potter," for instance — through all of its divisions, from film to television to publishing and merchandising.

"I do think this is a real trend and it's happening everywhere, not just in movies," said the veteran producer Marc Abraham. "In the last four or five years, branding has become the catchword. Everybody is trying to establish a brand and exploit it."

There is less agreement in Hollywood on the impact of all this, though many suspect it will make the task of making bolder and riskier films even more daunting.

"If you have a movie that is not differentiated, that does not fit into one of those categories, it really has to be spectacular to carve out a spot in the marketplace today," Mr. Simonds said. He added that having a brand identification can spell the difference between failure and spectacular success. "If it's merely good, you're in trouble."

Brand-name films also frequently lend themselves to creative marketing avenues as other media, like television and publishing, often are more eager to jump on the bandwagon. A case in point is "The Scorpion King." Although the film is entirely fictional, it is loosely based on the legend of an actual ancient figure. This is allowing the History Channel to piggyback on the film's release by showing a new documentary next Tuesday about "The Real Scorpion King." And not only that, but research by Egyptologists about the legendary king will be a part of the documentary.

"Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets" is due in November, as is "Die Another Day," the 20th James Bond movie, and a movie version of the cartoon series "The Wild Thornberries." December promises "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers," the second chapter in the Oscar-winning fantasy series, whose first installment, "The Fellowship of the Ring," recently surpassed $300 million at the American box office.

There is not a studio in Hollywood that is not trying to dream up fresh franchises, revive dormant ones or figure out how to capitalize on a comic book hero, video game series or dusty title languishing in its archives.

Warner Brothers, now leading the way in this franchise frenzy, is preparing to revive the "Batman," "Superman," "Conan," "Terminator" and "Exorcist" franchises, as well as creating new ones with "Wonder Woman," "Looney Tunes" and remakes like "Westworld" and "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory." Universal Pictures is hard at work on "The Hulk," "The Cat in the Hat," "Red Dragon" (featuring the movies' favorite serial killer, Hannibal Lecter) and a Coen Brothers remake of the 60's caper comedy "Gambit."

New Line Cinema has remakes of "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and "Willard" in the works; MGM wants to bring "The Outer Limits" television series to the big screen and has teamed with Miramax on a remake of Akira Kurosawa's classic "Seven Samurai"; DreamWorks is hoping to jump-start a new franchise based on the Matt Helm spy books that spawned a Dean Martin series in the 60's; Sony is working on a new version of "Peter Pan"; Miramax is starring Roberto Benigni as "Pinocchio"; Paramount is beginning a remake of "The Warriors," a 1979 teenage-gang thriller; and RKO, the long dormant Hollywood studio, is reviving its name and hoping to capitalize on remakes of movies drawn from its vaults, like "Suspicion" and "Beyond a Reasonable Doubt."

"It's much harder these days to get anyone's attention," said Ted Hartley, RKO's chairman. "You only have about 10 seconds to grab them. And to get somebody to react positively to some new idea, some new title, takes a lot more than 10 seconds. So we all love starting with something that's already known." Disney is polishing potential remakes of several of its family favorites, and is readying a series of franchise-hopeful films built around its most popular theme-park attractions, like "Pirates of the Caribbean" and "Haunted Mansion."

Mr. Simonds, who recently moved his production deal to the Disney lot, said he had been thinking of doing an Adam Sandler-type of comedy set in the world of Nascar racing. It has since turned into a more family-oriented remake of "The Love Bug," Disney's 1968 comedy about a talking Volkswagen.

"To me, the new trend is going to be family films," Mr. Simonds said. "That seems to be the market that's really connecting with audiences at the moment."

Part of the problem is that this psychopathically contemptuous biz makes a distinction between good taste and good films; thus we get a torrent of raw sewage and "family" pablum whose sole element is marketing.

But then, morons will be morons.

Here's a novel idea, make some original movies with original ideas. Half the movies made these days are remakes, or rehashs, or just plain regurgitations (The Flintstones with Stephen Baldwin and Rosie). This does far more harm to Hollywood's project than any morality issues.

Herbie wasn't funny in 1968, what makes you think it'll be funny now?

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