HOLLYWOOD, CA — It's a simple formula: take an already wildly popular franchise and then tweak it a bit to attract even more fans.
"It seems like such a foolproof plan," said Nina Gibbs, showrunner of a popular franchise. "I mean, you have the fans who have loved the franchise for decades — so they'll watch no matter what — and then you just add things to attract other people who hadn't loved it before."
And all the additions seemed like smart ideas, like making the lead a woman to attract more female audience members, adding LGBTQ characters, and getting rid of some of the outdated ideas from the original that simply wouldn't work with the more sensitive young people of today.
But once again, as strangely happened with such mega-franchises like Star Wars and The Lord of the Rings, this has resulted in the decline of the series and even fewer fans.
"It's confusing," said Gibbs. "We got the old fans denouncing the new shows. I guess that just exposed they were bad fans, and we're probably better off without them anyway. The only problem is we're not picking up a lot of new fans."
It's unclear why, but media analysts think the problems are that the new female characters aren't "girlboss" enough, there's not enough lecturing about important modern issues, and that three gay subplots simply aren't enough for what audiences want.
"I mean, we got rid of all we thought sucked about the franchise and added in all those new things," Gibbs said. "But now it seems like the franchise is dead — maybe we were just too late. Anyway, time to find another franchise to try again with!"
At publishing time, Gibbs had made the shrewd decision to turn every character of a beloved franchise gay.
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