Why doesn't literature treat franchises like film does with all the sequels prequels spinoffs and reboots?

Intellectual property rights are handled differently. Screenwriters often sign away the rights to their characters, or write based on popular material that their studio already owns. Novelists tend to be much more autistic about "originality," and much more territorial about what they create. Neither approach is good or bad, just different.

kstew so pre pre

This really has the trappings of some quality bait.

This. It already happends. There are tons of sequels and spin offs of famous franchises.

Also, it takes other forms. For instance, a book like Treasure Island is just a nice little book from Robert Louis Stevenson with no sequels, but there are several other versions for kids, some illustrated, graphic novel versions, etc. Besides, there are probably actual sequels to Illiad and all kinds of shit we never heard about, but they are not noteworthy because they are completely off the point. People are not interested in the characters themselves, they want the prose, the historical relevance of the work, etc. If you're not the original author, people won't care. In movies however, you can make any Batman story and any Star Wars film and it will sell much better than with new unknown characters.

And another thing is that there are actual franchises like the Three Musketeers or Conan, pulp novel franchises with several books and so on.

The examples you gave are from another time and other kinds of story too. There is no Citizen Kane 2 or Stalker III: Return to the Zone either. The very notion of a franchise is a commercial one and will only be present with commercial material.

>bait
What? How is Odyssey not a spinoff? It takes place after Iliad and follows a minor character from it

I'm saying you're likely responding to a bait thread. With some tweaking this could be one of the greatest baits of all time. It just needs a couple of more examples of great works with equally great tangential works.

Illiad 2: Revenge of the Trojans is just The Aeneid

because there are books that are written to have sequels as well as films that are not meant to be given sequels
you fucking melt

if I'm not mistaken there were a shitload of stories set in the extended iliad\odyssey universe that we have lost forever

>Better yet I hope the removal isn't covered by insurance
Murrica: not even once

Julius Caesar would be a good choice. Shakespeare play with a sequel, but slightly less obvious than, say, Richard II or Henry IV part one.

It's the same as movies actually, good ones generally know that once somethings done, its done (or chapters keep getting added to the story). Harry Potter was 7 books long, for instance, it is the mega-franchise. But asking why there is not Gatsby 2 is like asking why there is no Casablanca 2.

>Iliad 2: Revenge of the Trojans
You mean, The Odyssey, Aeneid, and, Ulysses?

Gatsby was already a rip off of Zelda's life.

It's like you think there's one King Arthur book. GG n00b

>Iliad 2: Revenge of the Trojans is just the Aeneid

Came to say this

i always wondered why movie sequels are numbered while book sequels arent

Books are sold on their author's name
Movies are sold on their brand's name

Majority of moviegoers don't give a shit who directed the latest Star Wars movie, it's the name "Star Wars" which sells tickers. Books are evidently the opposite, famous writers can sell their creations under any name.

But it does, are you retarded?
There's plenty of "modern re-imaginings" of old stories.

>tfw Kafka didn't live long enough to finish the second instalment in the series:
>"He was a mild-mannered petty bureaucrat, pushed to his limits by a faceless Law machine. His harsh sentence was to be final. They hadn't expected..."
The Appeal: Beyond the Law