What makes a successful movie series?

As I mentioned earlier, I was reading Harry Potter books recently. And this other day, they were showing all the movies in the Star Wars franchise, back to back. I saw one of them as a nostalgia thing (The Return of the Jedi was the very first movie I went and saw with my friends without my parents). And suddenly I realized there are certain things which are common between the three most successful movie series in recent times. The three movie series I am talking about are Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, and Harry Potter series. Of course there are other movie franchisees but they are successful sequels rather than a tight chronological series e.g.- Indiana Jones, James Bond, Die Hard etc.

To start with, all three are set in fictional world and involves a lot of magic / supernatural powers. Then, in all three series, there are groups of good guys fighting the bad guys, and in all three there are good guys turned into bad guys! All three movie series required a huge amount of Special Effects / Computer Generated Imagery (CGI) without which the movies could not have been made.

There are several other common traits in these movies! Guess what the next big movie series' theme will be!

5 comments:

Butterfly said...

Me First yet again!

Butterfly said...

So, u r reading Harry Potter now. Aren't they simply wondeful?

Subhadip said...

You first :)
Harry Potter's is a wonderful world! I just finished the Goblet of Fire.

Reeta Skeeter said...

:D Harry Potter ROCKS!
LOR was beautiful!
Pirates was superb!
I want a Grand Finale sequel to all these series respectively.
Something that has not been written into a book, but just made into a movie...Howzzat?

Subhadip said...

@Reeta Skeeter
You can't have a grand finale of LOR, unfortunately! True... Pirates is not based on a movie, but then, all the common factors of fantasy, entourage, etc, applies. Its X factor surely is the portrayal of Capt. Jack Sparrow. I can't wait for the next POTC!