Book Chapters by Tara Lomax
Starring Tom Cruise, 2021
The idea of a “franchise star” reflects creative and industrial shifts in how the interplay of st... more The idea of a “franchise star” reflects creative and industrial shifts in how the interplay of stardom, intellectual property (IP), and narrative is negotiated in contemporary Hollywood. As Derek Johnson identifies, the star system and franchising are “two modes of Hollywood product differentiation” that sometimes work in contestation (2008, 216). Like the star system, Hollywood franchising leverages the marketability of recognizable icons; however, the difference between the two systems is that stardom’s iconicity centers on the bodily spectacle and narrational significance of human persona, and the franchise system leverages the iconicity and expandability of IP and story brands—like ‘Star Wars’ and ‘Marvel’. This process of expansion is enabled by synergistic branding strategies and broader convergence practices in the media culture landscape. Stardom and franchising are therefore both effective industrial systems with comparable marketing objectives suited to different modes of production. Sometimes these systems converge, but they do not always easily coalesce. Focusing on producer and actor Tom Cruise as a case study, this chapter examines the negotiation of stardom and franchising as it relates to storyworld design and industrial synergy.
The Supervillain Reader, 2020
Darth Vader is one of the most iconic supervillains in popular culture. As an evil archetype, Vad... more Darth Vader is one of the most iconic supervillains in popular culture. As an evil archetype, Vader’s unequivocal villainy is predicated upon the enigma of his origin and the good versus evil polarity that arguably underpins the Star Wars franchise. However, the Star Wars prequel trilogy complicates the oversimplified dualism of this thematic premise by revealing Vader’s past as Anakin Skywalker: the once heroic “Chosen One” turned corrupted Jedi Knight then Sith Lord. Considering Vader’s various depictions across movies, comic books, and television, this chapter examines the sequential complexity of Vader’s villainy with a focus on how the prequel trilogy complicates notions of temporality, memory, and continuity. In occupying both the before and after, the prequel trilogy presents Vader as a liminal villain who is simultaneously Jedi and Sith, thus contributing a temporal perspective to Vader’s role as villain to re-works the themes of heroism, villainy, and ‘destiny’ in the Star Wars franchise.
Hannibal Lecter’s Monstrous Return: The Horror of Seriality in Bryan Fuller’s Hannibal, 2019
The Palgrave Handbook of Screen Production, 2019
The Superhero Symbol: Media, Culture, and Politics , 2019
The industrial conditions concerning owner ship and licensing of intellectual property (IP) are c... more The industrial conditions concerning owner ship and licensing of intellectual property (IP) are central to the development of creative content in contemporary media franchising. Similarly, the licensing relationships between comic book publishers and Hollywood studios have a dynamic impact on the creative development and industrial identity of superhero properties. For example, in the late 1990s Marvel Comics regained its economic stability following bankruptcy by licensing high-profile superhero properties like Spider-Man and the X-Men to Hollywood studios.1 This licensing strategy saw Marvel forfeit creative control of a number of its characters. Media and cultural studies scholar Derek Johnson notes that such licensing agreements gave Hollywood studios "creative and economic control over production, marketing, and sublicensing," and thus Marvel "strug gled to maintain creative power over the direction of its comic book films."2 This creative-industrial tension is at the foundation of Marvel Studios' orga nizational identity as a movie production com pany conceived to selfproduce its remaining superhero properties. As president of Marvel Entertainment Alan Fine explains, in setting up Marvel Studios "we wanted to control the destinies of our own characters. We wanted to decide when, how, and in which ways we would bring them to filmed-entertainment."3 Therefore, Marvel Studios is founded as an industrial intervention into the conventional structures of owner ship and licensing relations between Hollywood and the American comic book industry. Marvel Studios' objective to self-produce its own superhero properties is realized in the development of what it has branded the Marvel Cinematic 3LMU E Q RQEC P > SC P QU 9 CPP 1II E QP CPC SCB Practicing Superhuman Law ✪ 119 3LMU E Q RQEC P > SC P QU 9 CPP 1II E QP CPC SCB
The book series Transmedia: Participatory Culture and Media Convergence provides a platform for c... more The book series Transmedia: Participatory Culture and Media Convergence provides a platform for cutting-edge research in the field of media studies, with a strong focus on the impact of digitization, globalization, and fan culture. The series is dedicated to publishing the highest-quality monographs (and exceptional edited collections) on the developing social, cultural, and economic practices surrounding media convergence and audience participation. The term 'media convergence' relates to the complex ways in which the production, distribution, and consumption of contemporary media are affected by digitization, while 'participatory culture' refers to the changing relationship between media producers and their audiences.
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Book Chapters by Tara Lomax