According to Edgar Wright, franchises must ‘learn to take a break’

The director thinks that we must “let the desire rise within the audience”.

Edgar Wrightthe man behind Shaun of the Dead, Scott Pilgrim And Baby Driverhas spoken extensively about his career and the state of the industry in the podcast Happy Sad Confused. He notably gave his opinion concerning the strategy of the franchises, without ever mentioning names, and their release schedule over several years: “One of the problems with franchises is sometimes when they announce – I’m not naming any names or anything – when they promise huge slates of movies and TV shows (…) there’s a danger of killing the goose that lays the golden eggs”.

In recent years, we have seen an increasingly dense project schedule, particularly at Marvel and DC. Superhero films and series are announced by the dozens, scheduled for the years to come. This is the case, for example, of the new DC Studio catalog, supervised by James Gunnwhich is already planning around ten projects from 2025. Marvel has become a champion in this sport, being one of the first companies to have developed a colossal catalog of films and series calling for enough sequels to cover the next ten years.

“If I could go back to when I was a young movie buff, and I just enjoyed a movie, and people said: ” Guess what ? There will be one every three years for the rest of your life. ” I would say : ” Really ?! “That’s what displeases me, the lack of investment in new films”think Edgar Wright, which, let us remember, had once been attached to Ant-Manand who is also a big fan of the first Star Warsa saga that he tackled in his series Spaced. He says franchises should not fear “take a break and let the desire rise in the audience”.

There is however an exception according to the director, the franchise James Bond. The filmmaker considers that 007 is the only saga to have escaped the trap and to continue to enthuse the public: “They’re pretty smart because they’re willing to pause things to build anticipation. They are the exception. (…) I would like certain films and series to make people understand that it is okay to take a break and create anticipation”, he adds.

Edgar Wright is producer of the new animated series Scott Pilgrim flies away, adapted from his previous feature film from 2010 and the comic strip. It is currently available on Netflix and the entire cast of the film (Michael Cera, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Chris Evans, Brie Larson, Jason Schwartzman…) comes together to voice the characters of the series.

Edgar Wright doesn’t regret spending M:I 4 to make Scott Pilgrim