In Hollywood, the franchise is king. With every other movie being released consisting of either a reboot, spin-off, sequel or prequel. This crowding of the market with franchised content is what helps make the success of the original movie Sinners noteworthy.
Sinners, is a horror-drama directed by Ryan Coolger, best known for Black Panther (part of the multi-level franchised Marvel Cinematic Universe) and Creed (a spin-off of the Rocky franchise). Coogler also wrote and produced Sinners, a personal passion project that achieved what many Hollywood studios often can only dream of for their original films, reaching both commercial and critical success. Sinners is, at its core, a horror film – but it’s also a blues musical and gangster thriller. This genre-bending story draws on African diaspora folklore and upholds against the haunting backdrop of 1930s Mississippi. Interwoven with multiple romantic threads and a stark portrayal of deeply ingrained Southern racism in the prewar Deep South. Sinners is ultimately also a chilling supernatural tale of evil – appropriately named Sinners.
R&B singer-songwriter Miles Caton makes his acting debut as Sammie, a preternaturally gifted teen blues guitarist and singer who is also, in the immortal words sung by Dusty Springfield, the son of a preacher man. The blues music used throughout the movie, mainly by Sammie, indirectly takes inspiration from the legend of Mississippi bluesman Robert Johnson who sold his soul to the devil in return for fame and fortune.
The predominantly Black cast was also a key selling points for audiences. Marketing efforts highlighted Michel B. Jordan, who played the dual role of the lead twins Stack and Smoke, and were further strengthened by the inclusion of Hailee Steinfeld, Wunmi Mosaku, Jack O’Connell, and Oscar nominee Delroy Lindo, all of whom added further weight and recognition to the marketing efforts and were likely draw cards of their own to moviegoers. Lead actor Jordan, and Coogler have a history together, with the duo known for their past successful collaborations on Black Panther and Creed, since the project could not rely on existing audience loyalty, the marketing strategy focused heavily on their stronger partnership.
The movie’s success is particularly triumphant given the initial low buzz after the first trailer, which was carefully left vague, as Coogler planned to leave the audience to discover the story themselves, arguably a risky move for an original content movie where audiences were not already familiar with the characters.
However, once Sinners had been released it became an unpredicted hit due to strong word-of-mouth, excellent reviews, and a unique audience reception. It’s worth noting that while Sinners is not a franchised movie and the story and characters were unknown to the audience before its release. Sinners is also not a “indie movie” as it did have large names attached to the project which could draw in potential moviegoers.
The movie is an undisputed victory for Warner Bros., which took a risk on Sinners with its $90 million budget that has paid off big, making Sinners an unexpected success at the box office, with the film’s performance exceeding expectations and finding interest from moviegoers who may not have been aware or interested in the tale prior to its release.
All of these points together helped in making Sinners a unique and shining star, with its success, which is rare for a non-franchised film. But the question to ask is, did Sinners help highlight to Hollywood that there is still a hunger among audiences for new stories? Or were these specific factors what helped contribute to Sinners success that studios cannot rely on when creating original content, making such projects often not worth the financial risk?
Hollywood has been continuously relying heavily on remakes and sequels in 2025 due to their financial viability and ability to leverage existing brand equity and audience familiarity. Ultimately, audiences seem more likely to go to a movie of a franchise they know and love than take a risk with the unknown.
The obsession with this kind of storytelling does not seem to being going anywhere in 2026 and onward, with at least 140 movie sequels currently planned. While not all the sequels are guaranteed with several franchise projects that were in development now on hold, it seems that the sequels and reboots are outnumbering original content these days and continuing into 2026 onwards.
Although many moviegoers express frustration with Hollywood’s lack of creativity, the box office numbers don’t always support this sentiment. It’s worth noting that complaints about remakes and sequels tend to only surface mainly when those films fail to perform well; and in fact the list of highest grossing movies of all time, 14 of the top 15 are remakes or sequels. The ongoing success of the franchise helps explain why Hollywood continues to follow this trend, as it often represents their most reliable financial return, which is why Sinners stands out among the tried-and-true franchise productions, as a passion project for director Coogler.
The Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU) serves as a leading example of a successful and influential film franchises in modern cinema. Known for consistently releasing multiple blockbusters films every year. In recent years, however, Marvel has scaled back its production schedule. At its peak, the studio was producing three films annually – sometimes even four, as seen in 2021 and 2022 – alongside TV shows. Following a noticeable decline in popularity and several box office disappointments, the MCU has now reduced its output to mainly two films per year for the foreseeable future. Yet, despite these setbacks, the studio has not abandoned the MCU. Instead, its continued investments reflects a strong belief in the enduring power of the franchise – and in the idea that fans are always willing to give their beloved characters a second and sometimes third chance.
While the remakes, reboots, spin-offs, sequels and prequels are not innovative, they are often nostalgic, and this familiarity and brand loyalty remain sound financial investments for studios. In contrast, unlike the box office success of Sinners, Pixar’s original movie Elio was a disastrous bomb.
Pixar is a powerhouse of a cinematic studio that has created successful original concept movies for decades – including Toy Story, Incredibles, Finding Nemo and Inside Out – and turned all of those into franchises with at least one sequel to their name. However, despite having this long list of extremely successful original films to their name, this era seems to be over with three of the four highest grossing animated movies of 2024 being sequels, including Despicable Me 4 ($969 million), Moana 2 ($1 billion), and Inside Out 2 ($1.69 billion) and more notably their original Elio opened to an estimated $21 million domestically in North America and $35 million globally.
That makes it, by a considerable margin, the lowest opening weekend in Pixar’s history. For comparison, Toy Story, an entirely original concept when it was release in 1995, earned $29.1 million during its debut weekend, which, when adjusted for inflation, is significant higher. These financial results illustrate that fan loyalty tend to have more of an influence on box office performance than audiences’ interest in originality or innovation, suggesting that Pixar’s era of groundbreaking original storytelling may have drawn to a close.
Pixar and Wall Street analysts even went as far as to blame us – the audience – for the failure of Elio, claiming that audiences have asked for original content but then fail to watch it.
Elio opened with generally positive reviews but came out the same weekend as – you guessed it – already established franchised movies: How to Train Your Dragon (a live action remake) which sold nearly twice as many tickets opening weekend, and 28 Years Later (the third film in the 28 Days Later series). These statistics clearly show why studios like Pixar believe that, although that while audiences may say they want original content, they often are not putting their money where their mouth is and actually going to see the original films. As a result, original movies remain a financial risk for studios.
For Elio’s opening weekend the tougher-than-expected competition meant there was little hope for Elio to succeed, with its marketing campaign also falling short. Despite Elio featuring well-known voice actors such as Zoe Saldana, Jameela Jamil, Brad Garrett and Ted Lasso’s Brendan Hunt, the social media engagement and self-promotion failed to generate the same impact as films like Sinners. One possible reason is that voice acting is harder to market – especially given that Elio’s target audience, children, may not be as drawn to these celebrities as adults. In contrast, Sinners benefited from a strong social media strategy, boosted by active engagement from the Black community and enthusiastic self-promotion from much of the cast both before and during the film’s theatrical run.
Self-promotion on social media via the cast and crew is not a new concept and has even gone a step further with many production companies expecting shows and movies to market themselves – with Netflix wanting built-in social media marketing potential, evident in its strategy of focusing on content that can go viral, like the ‘Wednesday dance’. This concept of course is helped with character familiarity making it again easier for franchises to promote themselves.
The flop of Elio may make Pixar and its parent company Disney hesitant to take risks on original projects in the near future. Highlighting the risk of moving away from tried-and-true franchises. By contrast, the Wrap predicts that Sinners could become “the highest-grossing original live-action film in the US since Alfonso Cuaron’s Gravity in 2013”.
Part of the success, according to anecdotes, is that audience are already paying to see Sinners multiple times. Unlike a formulaic, franchise-driven film, Sinners offers fresh discoveries on repeat viewings, while still ensuring an enjoyable experience. If more movies can inspire this kind of passion for original storytelling, Hollywood might reconsider the rarity of amateur-driven, big-budget films in today’s cinema landscape.
Either that or Sinners will end up with its own spinoff, possibly joining the franchise family.
Therefore, the key takeaway from Sinners is that if audiences want original films, they also need to support them by putting their money and bodies as audience behind them and actually watching them. While this may seem obvious, it often doesn’t happen. So next time you see an original concept film playing at your local theatre, it’s worth giving it your time – and money – and buying a ticket.
Sammy Tassone 
Monique B 
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