TV's future is heavily franchised blockbuster intellectual property

Observer

From Marvel to Star Wars to Game of Thrones, franchises have become all the rage. "With the arrival of The Walking Dead in 2010 and Game of Thrones in 2011, television began another metamorphosis," says Brandon Katz. "The dawn of the Blockbuster TV era pushed networks to find broad appeal genre-tinted commercial hits; big budget home run swings with all the flash of a big screen movie. The proliferation of content-hungry streaming services backed by well-resourced tech giants has flooded the market with oodles of money to make this possible. The Hollywood shift away from original concepts and towards known franchises and high-profile intellectual property has only expedited the transition into this new TV arena over the last decade. Now, as we look out across the upcoming horizon of the small screen, it is practically all we see."