Inspiring numerous song edits, Tik Toks, and comedy sketches, HBO’sSuccessionintro credits took over its place in the cultural zeitgeist almost immediately. Play that simple piano sequence in a room and there’s bound to be instant recognition. Although the theme song and opening sequence to match has inspired so much,Succession,actually was heavily influenced by an intro from aDavid Fincherfilm that used the high grain film B-roll and simple music long beforeSuccession.That movie is the 1997 psychological thrillerThe Game.
Written byJohn BrancantoandMichael Ferrisand starringMicheal Douglas, the film follows an extremely wealthy business executive who gets gifted the opportunity to participate in a life-altering game. Douglas’ character, Nicholas Van Orton, is thrust into a series of events that bends his perception ofwhat’s real and what’s part of the gamehe signed up for. Overshadowed by Fincher’s other works, the film is more than worth a revisit if you haven’t seen it. The intro sequence to the movie can be directly compared toSuccession’sin many ways.
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‘The Game’ and ‘Succession’ Intros Are Presented Similarly
In terms of how the intros are presented, the similarities are crystal clear. The aesthetic is aiming to look like the home videos that the characters in each of the stories were a part of. Seeing as bothThe GameandSuccessioninvolve the ultra-wealthy, neither the Roys nor Nick Van Orton’s parents are holding the camera. Both of the intros see a montage of B-roll footage surrounding a large estate on a pleasant day and both use a film grain high exposure camera look. These intros are designed to give context to the characters and events in the film and series, respectively. Whereas theSuccessionintro is interspersed with high-definition shots of the New York City skyline and printing presses,The Game’s intro stays on a single day in the past of the main character, namely, Nick van Orton’s father’s birthday.
With both intros featuring a piano-heavy song in the background, the connection is further cemented. WhereasSuccession’sintro is arguably a bit more upbeat than that ofThe Game, both are still daunting and ominous, preparing the audience for what lies ahead. When viewers of Fincher’s film are given more about Van Orton and his family throughout the film, the somber tone makes more sense. If there’s one thing that is obvious about both of the intros besides the music and the look, it’s that the audience is shown that the characters we are about to see onscreen, were born into wealth and affluence, as shown by the sprawling estates that the intro sequences take place at. The content of each intro does reveal different clues to what lies ahead for the viewers, however.
The Scenes Shown in Each Are Different in Important Ways
The goal of these intros are in line with the idea that they want to give the audience a sense of the main characters relationships with their parents.In Fincher’s film, there are really clear shots of a young Nick Van Orton’s face, other presumable friends and relatives, and Nicholas’ father throughout. This is interspersed with images from the birthday party and later solo shots of father Van Orton alone, smoking or walking. This becomes important as you find out that Nick witnessed his father commit suicide at the very birthday that the home video was shot at, his 48th. The intro tells the audience that Nick may have had an alright or even good relationship with his father until that fateful day when everything changed. In fact, the whole reason Nick is gifted the chance to participate in The Game is as a birthday present on his own 48th birthday.
In theSuccessionintro credits, there are some interesting content differences toThe Game. For one, the grainy home video footage is cut together with modern-looking cinematic footage of the New York City skyline, ATN headlining newscasts, and printing presses. Furthermore, the faces of younger Logan Roy (Brian Cox) and his wife at the time Caroline (Harriet Walter), are blurred and not shown very much in comparison to the Roy kids. The shots of Logan we do get are from a distance and often him walking away as well. This is meant to give the audience a sense of the disconnection and emotional neglect that was always very present in the Roy household and affects them to this very day.
The choice to use grainy film footage is dual purpose in these cases as well. The effect it gives in presenting what is on the screen as a home movie is the most obvious use, but thematically it works as well. Film footage often sees warmer colors and that is true of bothSuccessionandThe Game’sopening credits. What we see contained within the footage tells us that the warmth of how the footage looks are in direct contrast to the emotional coldness of the families we see. This is more apparent in the Succession intro than that ofThe Gamebut with the added context of what happens with Nick’s father in Fincher’s film, the understanding that it is telling of who Nick Van Orton becomes in life that much more apparent.
After watching the intro toThe Gamethere is not a doubt one can have about its influence onSuccession.The key differences point to the differences in the character’s early relationships with their parents and give us context as to why they are the way they are when we are watching them in the present. Hopefully,Successioninspires future movies or series to use the intro similarly and carry on the idea that intro credit sequences can be just as important to the program as other elements.
