Production Cultures and the “Look” of Nostalgia: The Rocketeer as Failed Franchise

This article examines The Rocketeer as a case study of a failed franchise. The author argues that The Rocketeer’s failure exemplifies the fluidity of industry discourse in the early 1990s about the specific textual forms franchise properties were to emphasize. Through a history of the textual negotiation of The Rocketeer as undertaken by multiple production cultures, the article shows that despite the several factors contributing to producers’ confidence in The Rocketeer as an inherently franchisable text—including its toyetic potential, its visual design, and its displaceable 1930s historical setting—Disney actually embraced the latter in its marketing and merchandising of the film.