Editorial: Part One of One

At the time of writing, Avengers: Endgame has begun its worldwide rollout onto home media, with the US already having digital copies available and in turn allowing us to bask once more in the bombastic and exciting moments that helped cement its place as the highest-grossing film of all time. But with conversation being primarily focused on Captain America wielding Mjolnir and Iron Man’s sacrifice, there’s been a distinct lack of discussion on Marvel Studios’ decision to split their saga finale into two films – something that, for a time, was much reviled by a percentage of audiences across this decade. The concept in itself is hardly new, with the Kill Bill duology being perhaps the most notable of the pre-2010 examples, but as soon as one boy wizard proved that studios could milk their blockbuster franchises more than ever before.

It’s common knowledge that the Harry Potter franchise celebrated its climax by splitting the Deathly Hallows into two parts, but it’s easy to forget just how much of a cultural impact the franchise had made on society. At the time of the first cinematic adaptation, the book series was already four entries in and had taken the literary world by storm – so much so that every studio in Hollywood was vying for the rights to turn them into films. The films only proved how popular they were, and on a near-yearly basis we were treated to the next thrilling instalment. Just look at its global box office: only one entry made less than $800m, and that one (Prisoner of Azkaban, which is now seen as the series’ best) was a mere $4m off. Naturally, Warner Brothers would want to capitalise on its worldwide success and cultural significance and announced that they would split the final book into two films in order to do the source material justice. The box office receipts only proved that, financially, it was the right move to do, with Part Two being the first in the series to pass a billion dollars at the global box office (back then a much rarer occurrence). But other studios saw the financial gain and decided to copy Harry Potter to much less success.

This tactic was most commonly used for adaptations of young adult book series, with Twilight opting to do the same thing with Breaking Dawn before Deathly Hallows hit cinemas. Twilight made some sense – for all the online disdain for the series it was a constant aspect of popular culture – but Part One was received more negatively than any previous entry, and outside of inspiring the equally despised Fifty Shades of Grey series have become largely forgotten. At least with Harry Potter it had a decade’s worth of movies whose longevity have allowed for continuous fan support (not least mentioning the Fantastic Beasts prequel series, but more on that later); Twilight doesn’t have that same fan-creator comradery. Breaking Dawn’s financial success cemented the idea that splitting films into multiple parts lead to bigger profits, but perhaps it also proved that some films shouldn’t do such a thing.

There would be two more YA franchises biting the bullet on the gimmick, but both had less success than both Harry Potter and Twilight. The Hunger Games was the more surprising failure, with Catching Fire Part Two grossing less than any other entry of the series (including Part One) and, despite the massive star power of Jennifer Lawrence and the massive success the first entries proved to be, the series may have jumped the gun in exploiting said success. That’s not to say the films were box office bombs – in actuality they were highly profitable – but the near $100m drop between instalments was alarming, and just like Twilight before it has become largely forgotten despite only concluding less than four years ago. But Divergent was the straw that broke the camel’s back. The splitting of its final book was announced shortly after the release of the first film, but that film was only a mild success; making good money for a small budget but not even cracking $300m worldwide. The increased budgets for subsequent films against diminishing box office returns proved to be a poor corporate strategy, and the failure of Allegiant led to the final half being cancelled. For a time, there was discussion of giving fans closure and converting it into a TV production, but as of last year talks have dwindled due to a lack of interest. It’s almost as though the studio got greedy and cared less for the fans than they did for their wallets.

But it was Warner Bros. that may have made the biggest mistake, as it was announced a mere six months before the release of its first instalment that The Hobbit adaptation would be expanded from two films to three; a move so poor that it led to production issues and practically destroyed director Peter Jackson. With each instalment sitting at runtimes longer than two hours for a book that was shorter than any one Lord of the Rings instalment, the goodwill the original trilogy gave to fans was tarnished as it suffered from pacing issues and uncharacteristic moments of poor visual effects and sequences. The first instalment, An Unexpected Journey, may have passed the prestigious billion dollar mark, but was highly criticised for its long stretches of empty storytelling – the journey itself doesn’t start until an hour into the near-three hour movie – and over time each entry (despite having increasing budgets) never reached the same financial high, and likewise is often forgotten despite the supposed impact a prequel trilogy to the highly-regarded Lord of the Rings series.

Warner Bros. hasn’t learned its lesson though, as two years after the Harry Potter series ended they announced a prequel-esque series of five films set within the Wizarding World. At the time fans were excited – after all, Harry Potter was still engrained into the public zeitgeist – but six years on and, like The Hobbit before it, the series lost that audience goodwill. Box office has dropped between both Fantastic Beasts entries despite being early in its franchise run, despite the increased focus on nostalgic elements such as Dumbledore, Nagini and Hogwarts, and there’s since been murmurings that the studio will be cutting their losses and concluding the series in the third and next instalment rather than in its fifth. It likely hasn’t helped that Potter creator and Fantastic Beasts screenwriter J.K. Rowling has made questionable public statements surrounding both the franchise and modern day politics, nor does having Johnny Depp in a major recurring role shortly after accusations of abuse against former wife Amber Heard.

The thing is, all these movies have failed to truly grasp why the initial decision made by the Harry Potter team made sense – at that point, they had six films under their belt that had spanned eight years and where we had seen this cast of child actors grow up right before our eyes. It also had the darkest tone of the series which had to cover a much larger ensemble cast of returning characters, with some major players being killed off. That’s not to say the Deathly Hallows perfected the formula right out of the gate, as due to it being more heavily married to its source material than prior entries it lends to a largely slow first part that has interesting character moments against a purely bombastic second part which (bar the relationship between Ron and Hermione) was predominantly focused on the conclusion of Harry’s arc. With a bit more creative freedom, Ron’s departure from the group would have worked stronger if he left later in the first half and didn’t return until the second half; allowing for a bigger fan response whilst perhaps feeling more earnt than just returning less than an hour later. But it still succeeded in meeting fan expectations while making a final entry that concludes the wider story alongside the central conflict of the Deathly Hallows.

Right before the bust of the multi-part movie, both DC Entertainment and Marvel Studios announced that their future superhero team-up movies would be split into two parts, with Justice League promising to finally bring DC’s titans together on the big screen after years of anticipation whilst Avengers: Infinity War would be concluding a decade of movies alongside finally showing us why Thanos – a character that had repeatedly been hinted at as early as Thor – was someone we should be anticipating. Justice League ultimately would be reduced to a single film following the poor reception of Batman V Superman: Dawn of Justice (and even then the film went through several difficult periods, becoming a joke amongst the fan community), but Avengers: Infinity War proved to be the first to replicate the Harry Potter effect. But where Infinity War and Endgame surpasses Potter and maybe even perfected the formula was through its execution and desire to still be seen as two distinct movies despite carrying the same overarching narrative and serving the purpose of ending the arcs of multiple long-lasting characters. But it shouldn’t really be a surprise that directing duo Joe and Anthony Russo were capable of doing such a thing, as the very piece of media that led them to being a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe did that exact thing close to a decade prior: Community.

To Be Continued...