Nina Jacobson on Building a Franchise
Nina Jacobson recently attended the Produced By Conference and served on a panel entitled “Franchise Building: Creating and Sustaining Studio Tentpoles”.
“The belief you can design a franchise just because you want one has been responsible for some of the worst movies we’ve seen in a long time,” said Nina Jacobson, the former head of production at Disney who produced the blockbuster hit The Hunger Games. “The most damning thing in Hollywood right now is the belief filmmakers decide if it’s a franchise. The audience decides.”
Jacobson said most potential franchises start with successful books, as was the case with The Hunger Games, or other well-known properties like games or products. That requires the filmmakers to be aware there are people with a strong attachments to the material, and that they “need to respect the ardent fans,” said Jacobson.
However, when you develop the script and cast, you still need to do what you think is best for your movie. “You can’t let the fans cast the movie,” said Jacobson.
Nina also commented on the option of making The Hunger Games 3D.
One thing Jacobson did not want for The Hunger Games was to make the movie in 3-D. She said that the creative team felt that despite the violence, there was a thoughtful quality to the books and that they were ultimately very ethical. “They are about young people and violence without exploiting young people,” she explained.
Jacobson said they did consider making it in 3-D but then felt it would make the violence more of the focus instead of having it be driven by the characters. “I think it would be distasteful,” said Jacobson. “We discussed it and discarded it early on.”
That Nina Jacobson is one smart woman! I don’t know about you, but I feel very secure having her as producer for The Hunger Games movies.
Source: Hollywood Reporter
I think she’s got her head screwed on strait! Catching Fire would be the best one to have in 3-D I think, but there’s also a lot of blowing things up in Mockingjay, who knows? It’s Hollywood!
*straight (sorree it’s a bad habit)
“You can’t let the fans cast the movie.” — YES. this is why i love her. ILU NINA!
it’s great to have the reassurance that the filmmakers want what’s best for us fans, and that they’ll take our voices into account, but that doesn’t mean they have to do everything we want them to do. a lot of the time even WE don’t know what’s best for us.
in a sense, we’re the children and they’re the parents– meaning we know and love the source material, but they know the film business– and at some point we have to let them they have to make decisions we just don’t have enough experience and insight to make. it’s a very delicate balance and as far as i’m concerned, they (nina, gary ross, lionsgate) did it right with the first film, so i trust them. nina especially.
Yeah Erin, I know how you feel. I’m glad she’s producing, she seems to be making pretty smart choices. With her and Suzanne Collins there I’m a little less doubtful that our adaptation of Catching Fire will be screwed up.
Good points she makes, have faith in her!
Hmm… this makes me wonder. I wonder if this was a hint that the 3 men rumored to play Finnick will most likely NOT play him.. Hmm.. We shall HOPE FOR THE BEST!
So glad she is part of this!
I have faith that she won’t let any of the sequels be trash. I believe she will want quality over quanity. Catching Fire will be amazeballs i’m sure
Seems the right person to be in charge (so glad that she discarded 3D early on).
How much control/influence does the producer have with a film like this?
I’m so glad we have Nina as a producer. She is just amazing, and I’m sure Catching Fire will be awesome.