Universal planned Jurassic for a decade and improvised Obsession. Here is how to build a film franchise, and what independent producers can borrow.
Universal planned Jurassic for a decade. It did not plan Obsession at all.
That contrast is the most useful detail from an FT Live panel on how to build a film franchise, and it got less airtime than the usual talk about story and emotion. Universal’s David O’Connor described both cases back to back. One franchise came with research, a trilogy, animated series and theme park rides. The other arrived as a surprise hit the company had to chase. “We didn’t have a plan against it,” O’Connor said of Obsession.
For independent producers and financiers, the contrast matters more than either success. One playbook costs a studio’s balance sheet to run. The other can be partly copied, if the deal is structured correctly.
The panel, moderated by Anna Nicolaou, US Media Editor at the Financial Times, brought together four executives: David O’Connor, Chief Brand Officer at Universal Entertainment; David Tinson, President and Chief Operating Officer at Electronic Arts; Gigi Pritzker, Founder and Chief Executive Officer at Madison Wells; and Mark Endemaño, Partner and Managing Director at AlixPartners.
The Planned Playbook: Jurassic
O’Connor, Universal’s chief brand officer, said the 2015 Jurassic relaunch was not the obvious bet it looks like now. The original was a 1990s franchise, and many younger consumers did not know it. So the first job was a good movie. By his account, it became the third largest grossing film of all time at that point.
Then came the step most producers skip. Universal ran a global research study through an internal initiative called Symphony. Audiences wanted more content, new entry points for younger viewers, and a way into the world beyond the theater. An animated series kept coming up. The theme parks had no Jurassic. Universal already had a 10-year plan, O’Connor said, but the plan only mattered because the first film worked.
The rollout since reads like a checklist. A trilogy. Two animated series with Netflix between the films. Jurassic World in all five Universal theme parks. An all-new chapter with an all-new cast. A Roblox game tied to Brookhaven, launched a week before the panel.
Note the sequence. The research followed the hit.
The Reactive Playbook: Obsession
Obsession is the stranger story. O’Connor said Universal believed in the film and hoped it would connect. It did, and then some. The studio had to improvise.
When the film moved to Peacock for its pay-one window, filmmaker Curry Barker said he was interested in Halloween Horror Nights, so Universal built an integration there. Its work with Fortnite put the film inside the game, which O’Connor said helped drive exposure for the Peacock release. Asked whether Obsession could become a franchise, he said there is potential. “We’re now in the Curry Barker business,” he added, noting that Universal has other films with him.
O’Connor credited the pivot to being an interconnected company with a branded ecosystem. Put plainly, Universal could improvise because it owns the stage: a streamer, theme park events and a game partnership already in place. Few independents own a stage.
What an Independent Can Borrow
Madison Wells founder Gigi Pritzker answered the money question from the other side of the table. Asked how her deal evaluation has changed in five years, she named one thing: “one of the biggest things is owning your library.” Streaming deals take all rights, she said, which makes keeping a piece of the upside hard.
Her workaround is equity in the production itself. “Having a piece of the equity during the production” means that when extensions arrive, such as reality shows, a live stage production or dinner theater, she still holds a share. Her example was a film built around a Staten Island restaurant, now at Netflix.
That is the independent’s version of Universal’s ecosystem. You cannot build a theme park. You can keep a claim on the people who do. In the next term sheet you negotiate, read the derivative rights clause before the minimum guarantee.
Why the World Beats the Plot
Electronic Arts COO David Tinson explained why game adaptations stumbled for years. The biggest game franchises are “massive online communities,” he said, where players spend hundreds of hours as the protagonist. Asking them to watch a story passively for two hours creates conflict. His fix: “You’re trying to recreate the world and then build different stories inside of that world.” He pointed to the Minecraft movie, Fallout and The Last of Us.
The scale matters here. AlixPartners’ Mark Endemaño said an assessment of the top 15 franchises of all time found they have collectively generated three quarters of a trillion dollars. Nearly half came from video games, and six of the 15 came from Japan. For a financier, the takeaway is rights clarity. A world can be licensed in more directions than a plot.
The Skeptic’s Footnote
One panelist predicted that 20 years from now, the biggest franchises will still be mostly today’s top 15. Audiences say they want original IP, the panelist noted, and then keep rewarding the next version of what came before.
That is the number independents should fear. The panel offered no hit-rate data, and nobody was asked for any. Lightning in a bottle is a fine thing to own and a poor thing to underwrite.
Mini FAQ
Can an independent film become a franchise without a studio ecosystem? It can, but the rights structure decides who profits. Pritzker’s approach is to take equity in the production so that later extensions still pay her company. That is one financier’s method, and the panel gave no data on how often it works.
Should you plan a franchise before the first film is made? Universal’s Jurassic plan existed only because the first film worked, and the audience research came after the hit. Obsession had no plan at all. Plan the rights position, not the sequel slate.
Why have video game adaptations improved? Tinson said the focus shifted from replicating a plot to building out the world. He also said a generation of creators who grew up playing games is now bringing their favorites to film and television.
Emotion, story and community
The panel’s closing answer was emotion, story and community. Nobody disagrees. The useful answer came earlier. Build the movie first. Keep a claim on what it can become. And if you are independent, accept that you will react faster than you plan. Before the next market, ask one question of every deal on your slate: if this works, who owns what comes after?
