Generally speaking, every film series has its strong and fading periods.
And the strong period of many series, still belongs to the beginning of the shooting, to the back of the film more and more bad, some even smashed the signboard.
This phenomenon is very common, including some well-known Hollywood IPs.
For example, the "Transformers" series that I want to talk about this time.
"Transformers" is very well-known in China, and it was once Hollywood's largest IP in the mainland (but was later replaced by "Fast and Furious" and Marvel movies)
But when it comes to the journey of this film series, it is really dramatic.
The Transformers IP was born in Japan in the 80s of the last world.
At that time, the toy company TAKARA introduced the concept of "deformable giant robot", and the deformed robot toy launched with it achieved great market success.
This attracted the attention of Hasbro, an American toy factory.
Hasbro partnered with TAKARA to further anthropomorphize the robots and produced a series of comics and animations for publicity.
The conceptual "Transformers" came into this world.
After entering the 21st century, it is a period of rapid development of Hollywood movies.
During this time, there were many series adapted from comics, such as Fox's X-Men, Sony's Spider-Man and so on.
Hasbro saw this opportunity and negotiated with Paramount Pictures, which had not yet found a suitable comic book project, and the two sides hit it off.
Thus, the "Transformers" movie was established.
The director Paramount hired to direct was Michael Bay, who later became known as "Exploding Bay".
The positioning of the "Transformers" series is still relatively clear, that is, the visual effects such as special effects and scenes are the first priority.
And the story itself is in the second or even third gear.
Of course, in this way, the evaluation is bound to be polarized.
In fact, after "Transformers" came out, it was a great success at the box office, and many viewers were attracted by these giant robots on the screen.
However, many critics criticized the film as a mess except for the special effects scenes.
However, the box office is all real money, and for Paramount, since it has made money, it must continue to make a sequel.
What's more, although the reputation of film critics is not good, it is not yet to the point where it can already affect the audience.
As a result, 2009's Transformers 2 took it to the next level in both ways.
At the box office than the first part to earn more, in the word of mouth than the first part is a little worse.
However, while it may seem calm on the surface, it is actually choppy.
When the second film was made, Bombshell actually had the idea of quitting because he didn't want to be bound to a series for a lifetime.
He wanted to make the movie he wanted to make.
However, the question arises again, you have to make a movie, you always need money, right?
If you want money, you have to have a capital to invest in you, right?
Let's let's Paramount invest in you and make you make movies that you like.
But only if you have to give us a way to keep making Transformers 3.
Because of this, Explosion Bei punched himself in the face and directed "Change 3".
The results of "Change 3" still continue the previous path, with worse word-of-mouth and higher box office.
At that time, the explosion of Beibei naturally thought that he had been liberated, so he issued a statement that he would no longer direct "Transformers 4", and then got the money to shoot a "Healthy Man Money Grabbing Group".
However, Paramount once again used the Contract Binding Act against him.
Don't you want to make other movies in the future? We can invest in you, but you have to continue to direct Transformers, don't you understand?
There may be children's shoes strange.
Although the "Transformers" series of this explosion is not well received, it has a high box office.
With this series as his signature, can't he go to other Hollywood studios to invest in his new movies? Why hang yourself from a tree in Paramount?
This has to say about a movie he directed before Transformers, Escape from Clone Island.
"Escape from Clone Island" is still liked by many people, but here is only its achievements.
The film was produced by DreamWorks Studios at the time, but the film's box office hit the center of the earth, causing DreamWorks to lose money very badly.
The immediate consequence was that DreamWorks' cash flow could not be turned over for a while, and it almost went bankrupt.
After barely holding on to a breath, he could only bow his head to "cooperate" with other major films to save his life.
With such a lesson from the past, which film industry still dares to invest money in the explosion shell to make a movie? Do you really think you have too much money to spend?
What's more, although the "Transformers" series is doing well at the box office, the reputation is getting worse and worse.
This information shows that the director of explosion shell is very "unstable", and the giants have market risk research departments, and they will not be stupid enough to repeat the road of DreamWorks.
But Paramount's method is also very hidden.
More than once, Bombshell has made it clear that he has lost interest in "Transformers", and Paramount is well aware of this.
In this case, using the contract bundling law to threaten Bombshell to continue directing this series is actually a hidden danger.
The later development of Transformers is indeed the same.
Although "Transformers 4" still has good box office results, its reputation has almost fallen to the bottom.
From many places in the film itself, you can see that the explosion shell has reached the edge of "doing whatever you want".
The first is the insertion of advertisements, which is jokingly called "Advertising King Kong 4", the reason is that many of the insertions of advertisements in it are too hardcore.
What does this mean? It shows that the explosion shell is not even bothered to think about how to make the ad insertion appear unobtrusive and does not affect the audience's perception.
The second is that when Bombshell Was directing the first Transformers, he made it clear that he didn't like mechanical dinosaurs, so he wouldn't let this robot appear.
But in the fourth mechanical dinosaur did appear.
It can be seen that the explosion shell has long been an attitude of not caring about anything, and what things want to appear is out, I am too lazy to reason.
After "Change 4", Explosion Bay seems to have reached the limit of patience, once again making it clear that I really don't want to and don't want to direct a fifth part.
However, Paramount did not spare him, and the contract bundling tactic continued to attack the explosive bay.
The result is also known.
Explosion Bay for "Transformers 5", only two words.
Shoot randomly.
The first four literary dramas are no longer very good, and the literary dramas of "Change 5" are not the same.
The special effects and scenes have also been seriously reduced, and the various fights are short and boring, and the design is very perfunctory.
Originally, this series was supported by special effects and scenes, and even this was lost, and the consequence was, of course, collapse.
Not only in North America, "Change 5" fell, but also in the largest overseas Chinese market, the reputation is also very poor.
After this movie, Paramount finally knew the truth that "a twisted melon is not sweet".
Later " Bumblebee " also stopped looking for explosive shells to direct.
Strictly speaking, the Transformers movie series can only be regarded as a success at the beginning, but not very successful.
There is no box office, no word of mouth, for a series of films, the hidden dangers are very large, may be thrown once to the end.
In this case, Paramount has also been using the contract bundling method to coerce The Explosion Shell to direct, which is itself a short-sighted approach.
Since Exploding Bay can't make the Transformers series better and better, why does he have to direct it?
Only see the box office in front of you, but you can't see the hidden dangers behind it?
Of course, it is more likely that Paramount executives get by, after all, changing directors is risky.
Explosion shell is there no box office no reputation, in case there will be a change of director is not box office reputation?
However, nothing in the world is absolutely safe.
Let's see how Disney treated the half-dead Marvel in the first place, and then look at Paramount's operation.
It's no wonder that Disney is now Hollywood's five undisputed No. 1, Paramount is the tail of a crane that has remained unchanged for eternity, and sometimes even Lionsgate Pictures, which is not one of the big five, can ride on his head.
Since Bumblebee, the latest Transformers movies haven't gotten much news either.
One will say that he wants to restart the world view, and then he will say that he intends to continue to produce the sixth part, and the chaos is a word.
Look at this IP, what kind of road will it go in the future.