Hollywood movie franchises seem to have lost the ability to end. As Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning lands in cinemas, James Harvey has a few thoughts…
Spoilers for John Wick: Chapter 4 and No Time To Die lie ahead.
When was the last time you saw the end of a film series? Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning, in cinemas this week, has been billed as that most elusive of modern movie phenomena: a last outing. Forgive me if I’ve heard this one before.
Mad About the Boy was marketed as the last Bridget Jones movie earlier this year – until star Renée Zellweger said maybe it wasn’t. John Wick: Chapter 4 (spoiler alert) ended with the title character’s funeral – Chapter 5 entered development last month.
One of the few franchises to offer an unambiguous end point to its hero’s journey did so, apparently, completely by accident: No Time To Die made lots of people cross, left the 007 license dormant for four years, and took it out of the family hands guiding the tiller since the 1960s. Even then, the film still ended with the series’ iconic vote of confidence: “James Bond will return”. A 26th film is due in cinemas in 2027.
Sifting through the biggest franchises of the 21st century, the days when a profitable character was allowed to ride off into the sunset seem like a distant memory. 2017’s War For The Planet Of The Apes was, until 2024, the most recent in the satisfying tradition of fixed blockbuster arcs alongside juggernauts like Harry Potter, The Lord Of The Rings and The Hunger Games.
Kingdom Of The Planet Of The Apes, set generations later and reckoning with the legacy of series protagonist Caesar, turns War’s full stop into a sort of indecisive ellipsis. Each of the above has since spawned their own share of spin-offs, prequels and reboots – but at least they were given a chance to end their heroes’ journeys in more-or-less decisive ways (upcoming Rings films and the Harry Potter And The Cursed Child stage show notwithstanding).
More recent blockbusters haven’t been afforded that luxury. Paddington In Peru, whose South American-bound story might, once upon a time, have ended with our young bear settling down with his extended ursine family – hospitalising millions with tear-induced dehydration in the process – whisks Paddington back to London to reset the status quo instead. Fellow trilogy-cappers Creed III and Bad Boys For Life seemed perfectly set up to send their heroes into the sunset. They didn’t.
Any screenwriting manual will tell you it’s hard to tell a meaningful story without a third act, and it’s hard to deny that these eternal character arcs are starting to lose their impact. Hollywood’s general reluctance to end profitable IP prematurely means that the few occasions a story might genuinely be ending don’t feel quite like the events they should. James Gunn’s Guardians Of The Galaxy: Volume 3 attempted to put a bow around his own space opera trilogy – being part of the MCU, its stars have been fending off questions about future films ever since.
Denis Villeneuve’s Dune trilogy might well look to end Paul Atreides’ story when the final instalment arrives next December. But, having already demonstrated its intention to tell more stories in the same universe with Dune: Prophecy, and with a sprawling bibliography of un-adapted novels on the Herbert estate’s shelves, will anyone believe Warner Bros when they say this is the end?
It’s certainly hard to think Final Reckoning will prove as conclusive as it sounds. After almost 30 years on the blockbuster spy caper train, I’m more convinced than ever that Tom Cruise will stop jumping off things at speed when someone scrapes him off the tarmac. If Paramount offer to send Ethan Hunt to space in 2035, he’ll sign the dotted line before the VHS has a chance to self-destruct.
Instead, Hollywood has gone all-in copying the social media feeds in the process of replacing it – streams of content designed to be pumped into cinemas until there are more Fast & Furious films than episodes of The Office. Leaving doors open just in case an actor wants to come back to help pay off their kids’ school fees is no way to tell a story. I’ve eaten enough boxes of supermarket shortbread to tell you: sometimes, it’s better that nice things end before we’d like them to.
