Director Edgar Wright Says Hollywood Franchises Should Learn to Take Breaks "To Let Audiences Get Excited Again"

Director Edgar Wright has made a lot of great original movies like Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim vs. the World, Baby Driver, and Last Night in Soho, and with a great track record in Hollywood, he has opinions about how franchises should be handled. His point of view comes from more of a fan perspective, but it’s valuable in that way, as it represents what many fans might be thinking as well.

Wright recently sat down with the Happy Sad Confused podcast (via IndieWire), and talked about the current state of Hollywood’s intellectual property addiction. Without calling out any franchises by name, Wright expressed frustration over the lack of breathing room when it comes to studios needing to plan and date multiple franchise movies over the course of a few years.

“One of the problems with film franchises is sometimes when they announce — I’m not mentioning any names or anything — when they announce like massive slates of films and TV shows […] there’s a danger of killing the golden goose. It is a weird thing: If I could go back to when I was a young film fan, and I’ve just enjoyed a movie, and people are saying, ‘Guess what? They’ll be one every three years for the rest of your life.’ I’d be like, ‘Really?!’ That’s the thing that is sad to me, the lack of investment in new movies.”

We all know who he’s talking about here. But it’s easy to argue either side. I know how excited we are when Marvel rolls out their next phase and we get to see what’s coming up over the next year or two. But I guess it would be just as exciting if there were half that many films on the list, or we found out about only the next project or two just ahead of time. It’s hard to know which way is better. It’s probably just preference. But there’s merit either way, I guess. What do you think?