Not quite 10 years old in 1976, the artistically rich and financially successful American New Wave (ANW) movement was reaching the end of its reign. Nonetheless, the five Academy Award Best Picture nominees for that year were all ANW titles, three from independent distributor United Artists (“Network,” “Bound for Glory,” and “Rocky”) and two from the Big 5 major studios: “All the President’s Men” (Warner Bros.) and “Taxi Driver” (Columbia).
Rocky on Stage
To be completely fair to the Big 5, the first film series to be protected by intellectual property rights was Warner’s “Dirty Harry” beginning in 1971. Starting in 1962, the independent United Artists-distributed “James Bond” franchise started, but none can be considered sequels as all of them are standalone features.
It is important to mention that there would not have been more “Rocky” movies had the first not made money. This is what I call a “pure” sequel franchise, which is the opposite of the “planned franchise,” a set of movies designed to make maximum profits over a period of years. Something like this began the next year with “Star Wars.”
“Star Wars” made over $775 million at the box office. It was also nominated for 11 Oscars (including Best Picture) and walked away with seven Academy Awards, in mostly technical categories.
Two sequels were to follow and there is some debate as to whether these were planned or not. If not, why wasn’t the first movie subtitled “Episode IV: A New Hope” as it was for the 1981 re-release? A year before that, the first sequel was released and titled “Episode V: The Empire Strikes Back.”
My guess on all of this is that Twentieth Century Fox didn’t want to commit to more than one installment until the first one landed squarely in the black. Once the second and third also banked major coin, it became clear that this would be a long-term cash cow. To the credit of creator George Lucas, he made Fox wait 16 years before delivering the first of two more movies in the trilogy. Both made lots of money, but paled greatly in comparison, artistically, to the original.
This “wait-and-see” attitude of Fox slowly spread to the Big 5. They all wanted “Star Wars”-level returns but didn’t want to gamble. This is why Paramount’s first “Indiana Jones” movie (1981) didn’t originally include “Indiana Jones” in the title; it was simply “Raiders of the Lost Ark” until 2000.
Starting in the ‘80s and lasting for the next 30 years or so, the Big 5 focused on cranking out sequels and took few chances on original or standalone productions. We got multiple versions of “Die Hard,” “Beverly Hills Cop,” “Lethal Weapon,” and “The Fast and the Furious.”
Then followed adaptations of established intellectual properties such as “Harry Potter” and “The Lord of the Rings” which, to this day, continue with endless inferior spin-offs.
In 2008, Paramount and Marvel released “Iron Man,” the first of a staggering 34 (and still counting) installments in the Marvel Cinematic Universe making it the largest franchise of all time with a total global gross of over $31 billion.
The New Studios
Independent studios that began producing and distributing these movies include (but are not limited to): Netflix, A24, Neon, Apple, Amazon Prime, IFC, Magnolia, Lionsgate, and the revitalized United Artists and MGM.
Since 2001, these studios outnumber the Big 5 in the number of Best Picture nominations, by year, 16 to five, with two years with an equal number of nominations from independent and Big 5 films. The last time the Big 5 outnumbered the independents titles in Best Picture nominees was in 2011.
For movies actually winning the Best Picture award during this period, the independents have won 14, and the Big 5, nine. Since 2012 the total is nine to three.
It’s not that the independents aren’t looking to make big bucks. For proof, see the healthy box office returns of Lionsgate’s “John Wick” franchise.
In 2024, of the top 20 box office performers, 17 of them were remakes, sequels, prequels, and spin-offs—nothing at all original, and all of them were Big 5 movies. The highest-grossing (original) non-Big 5 title of 2024 was Neon’s 34th place “Longlegs.”
The Future of Movie Studios
So, what does all of this mean? This depends on which lens you’re looking through.It’s highly unlikely that any independent studio will ever challenge the Big 5 as far as box office returns are concerned. The Big 5 aren’t stupid. As long as proven intellectual properties continue to make major bank, they’ll continue to favor pushing them over anything new or original.
On Thursday, Jan. 23, AMPAS announced the nominees for the 97th Academy Awards. As I suspected, the number of Best Picture titles from the Big 5 hit an all-time low. Of the 10 nominees, only two were produced by the Big 5: “Dune, Part II” (Warner Bros.) and “Wicked, Part I” (Universal).
As far as “prestige” is concerned, the Big 5 is burnt toast. The ANW 2.0 is only gaining momentum as the years pass and until the Big 5 begin to realize artistry is far removed from box office laziness, it will continue to be increasingly artistically insignificant.
