Market forces … Marvel's The Avengers. The studio has helped change the industry with deft brand management over

The Dark Knight and Marvel: theblockbuster franchise comes of ageHarry Potter kicked off a new era of film in which long-term storyarcs hold the key to retaining a global audience. Perhaps thisisn't wholly a bad thing

Phil Hoadtheguardian.com, Wednesday 14 November 2012 12.42 GMT

its first five films. Photograph: Reuters

One of 21st-century cinema's biggest cash cows would never have mooed if StevenSpielberg had got his way. In 1999, the director was in the frame to direct the firstHarry Potter for Warner Bros but, according to Dreamworks biographer NicoleLaPorte, wanted to squash several of the novels into one movie – snubbing theapproach that eventually produced an eight-film rollover bonanza. The creator ofIndiana Jones and Jurassic Park was hardly an enemy of the franchise, but maybe evenhis commercial genius didn't anticipate how mercilessly it would be deployed over thenext decade.

Franchises have effectively become the insurance policy against the terrifying expenseof the global blockbuster, providing the branding – characters, dramatic configurationsand iconography – that encourages audiences to embrace the familiar. There's noguarantee a blockbuster will cross culturally diverse territories, but being part of afranchise maximises the odds. That's the cold business reality. What might heartenwarm-blooded story craftsmen such as Spielberg is that as these multi-episodeentertainment machines continue to spawn, something unexpected has been bred backinto being: a revaluing of narrative depth, and even – unimaginable! – a kind of long-term story arc.

We've got Marvel to thank for the long-term bit, perhaps because they had to play thelong game themselves to come into being as a film studio. After nearly 10 years of stud-farming their stable of superheroes out to other companies, it was leveraged intoexistence as an independent developer in 2005, its intellectual property offered up assecurity on the $525m Merrill Lynch credit facility raised for its first slate of films. Nowonder then that the IP has been given an unusual level of care, with the carefullyinterlocking nature of its first five films (Robert Downey Jr's Tony Stark cameoingoutside his own films; running appearances for the Shield operatives and key gizmos

like the Tesseract) resulting in a universe that comes lovingly annotated. These effortsculminated earlier this year in The Avengers – which united its characters into the firstmeta-franchise – and its $1.5bn worldwide payday.

With Kevin Feige, Marvel's head of production, now talking about Marvel Studios"phase two", it's clear that the company has a vision – or at least wants everyone tobelieve it does. The shrewd cross-fertilisation of its filmography distracts from the factthat they've all essentially been the same film: the superhero origin story. So inanother sense, Marvel still hasn't outgrown the old franchising limitation: repetition ofthe formula. This is where narrative depth comes in. With so many competing outfitson the market, having a solidly welded story arc to keep your franchise moving forwardis becoming a much-coveted kitemark.

Continuity never used to be significant. Batman and Bond were basically the sameentity from film to film. They might occasionally undergo a conceptual shift – theMoore epoch to the Dalton, say – but that had more to do with star power and studiopolitics than the internal consistency of the character. Christopher Nolan's Dark Knighttrilogy has changed that (the sole bright spot for DC in this story, as its long-termfranchise thinking has been woeful in every other respect). The Englishman didn't justdeliver a plausible origin story, he followed it through with two chronologicallycohesive sequels that successfully stage-managed an evolution in the Bruce Waynecharacter. It's hardly The Godfather, but the majority of big-budget heroes – Indy, JackSparrow, Ethan Hunt – are usually too busy having fun to evolve in any meaningfulway. Nolan forced an intriguingly penumbral transition through, and even squeezed ina few resonant themes on top.

This story-driven approach to franchising – whether or not you think blockbustermaterial really needs the psychological realism and gravitas involved – is growing ininfluence. Sam Mendes has admitted his debt to The Dark Knight in shaping his 007 in

Skyfall, whose replete inner life is his most modish gadget these days. Casino Royalekickstarted the new, introspective Bond in 2006, before the 2007-2008 writers' strikesunk any chance of that kind of substance in Quantum of Solace. Skyfall writer JohnLogan helped revive the interpretation, and has been hired for the next two films,presumably to flesh out a backstory for the creases on Daniel Craig's Bond'sbattleground visage.

Marvel Studios would do well to examine Bond and Batman's recent story arcs as itenters its second phase; otherwise its delicate web of superheroes could be revealed tohave the same sort of weak strands that saw Sony rebooting Spider-Man only a decadeafter the last incarnation got started (call me old-fashioned, but doesn't that just erodethe property?). But Marvel can be proud that its deft branding strategy has alreadychanged the industry: we're in the era of "creative consultants" mapping out the futurereaches of the great franchise-empires. Kick-Ass writer Mark Millar has beenappointed to caretake X-Men and Fantastic Four, two of Marvel's leased-out concerns,for Fox; George Lucas will be performing the same role on Star Wars under its newDisney paymasters.

It's debatable how much financial incentive there is for the studios to invest in thiskind of garden upkeep. The mammoth box office and critical acclaim for the DarkKnight trilogy and Skyfall suggest the benefits are there, but – defying the supposedlaw of diminishing returns on sequels – less progressive 21st-century franchises havealso tended to increase their global box office with each new film (perhaps because newmarkets outside the US have been continuously expanding since the mid-1990s). Butthat's the kind of cynical business logic that has allowed Hollywood to dodge thecreative route, so we should be grateful there's an alternative philosophy growing outthere. If franchises have to rule the cinema universe – something Lucas has acquiescedwith more than Spielberg – isn't it better they're done with the long-term in mind?

What's this?

What's this?

• Next week's After Hollywood will look at an act of piracy at the Greek box office.Meanwhile, what global cinematic stories would you like to see covered in the column?Let us know in the comments below.

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