The Problem with Sequels

Picture this: You’re a Hollywood studio executive who has just pumped out a box office smash. At this point, your one priority is capitalizing on the momentum that the film is garnering, and there seems to be one obvious thing to do.

Make a sequel.

You begin pouring money down the throat of any director who thinks they can capture some of the same attention that the original movie received, but this time you need to go bigger. Make a scarier villain, add more conflict, increase the action, and raise the stakes. You rush to throw together the original actors, a new script, some haphazard special effects, and you’re finished.

The original movie might’ve taken up to decades in the writer’s mind, while the sequel usually takes around only two to five years. This is the main problem with sequels as a whole—they’re almost always less focused on the plot, and more focused on the money.

Of course, there are good sequels that exist (think “Spider-Man 2” (2004), “Toy Story 2” (1999), and “Captain America: The Winter Soldier” (2014)), but the bad ones far outnumber the good. At this point, remakes and sequels have become an industry-wide problem, and simply pointing out exceptions to the rule is no longer a proper excuse.

The first and biggest problem with sequels is that writers merely attempt to copy the plot of the first film. The lack of original ideas in Hollywood really comes out when sequels are just straight-up rip-offs of the original. Take the “Hangover” (2009) series: each movie follows the exact same premise. The four friends black out for the night, have to get their bearings, and make it back home before some big event the next day. The first movie is funny and fresh, but with the next two sequels, it seems illogical, if not downright impossible, that these same friends would let their drinks be drugged two more times after the first. In any case, trying to go the same route as the original for the sequel is almost always a recipe for disaster. While it can make big bucks at the box office, it leaves most moviegoers craving something new and creative.

The second problem that often occurs in sequels is the incentive to go bigger and better. In “The Amazing Spider-Man” (2012), Peter Parker was only fighting one villain, so the studio figured it was probably a good idea to triple that for the sequel. It evidently was not, and the movie felt choppy, with every character being underdeveloped as a result. It doesn’t help that “Amazing Spiderman 2” (2014) is a sequel designed to reboot a trilogy adapted from a comic book. When studios raise the stakes for the sequel, it often leads to the movie’s writers going mad with power. They feel the need to take everything from the first movie and multiply it by a factor of two. Similar villain, better powers. Similar threat, more devastating consequences, etc. Again, it leaves the audience feeling cheated, as they are still getting the same product, just in different packaging.

The third reason why sequels are almost always worse than the original is simply not having enough time. When a sequel, or any movie for that matter, is rushed, the story, characters, dialogue, and action don’t get enough thought put into them, and the film ends up feeling incomplete. Sometimes, like in “Black Panther” (2018), even the special effects are not polished enough; the final fight scene of the movie ends up looking like a video game—weightless and mechanical. The VFX artists didn’t have the time to perfect the motion blur or physics of the scene. When a studio rushes a sequel, fearing the market for the movie will go untapped if they don’t, the movie suffers as a consequence.

In the end, if a filmmaker is trying to produce a high-quality movie it is probably best to make an original film. However, if they are trying to make the most money at the box office, a sequel is a good idea. In fact, only four of the 40 most profitable movies of all time are not a sequel, reboot, remake, or adaptation. There are many ways that a sequel can fail, but when done correctly, the sequel is a powerful tool that can further the plotline of a story universe, develop new and exciting characters, or even go above and beyond the original film. Hopefully, in the future, we will be able to view sequels as valuable pieces of cinema, and not just quick cash grabs studios use to turn a profit.