Wikipedia lists* Another Part of the Forest* (1948) as a prequel to The Little Foxes (1941). That’s the oldest movie prequel listed.
In literature, they list The History of the Holy Grail (1230) as a prequel to Death of Arthur (c. 1210).
According to the DVD commentary, Allen wanted to come back and Spielberg wanted her back. It was Lucas who put the kibosh by insisting that Indy have a different love interest every movie a la James Bond.
“Destry” came out decades after Jimmy Stewart’s “Destry Rides Again.”
While not the first, I seem to recall the word starting to gain currency with "The Amityville Horror II (1982), which happened ‘before’ “The Amityville Horror” (1979). Google N-gram shows the word starting to really pick up steam in the late 1970s.
From the point of view of Cornelius and Zira, the events of Escape happen after that of Beneath. In fact, the time period they travel to, IIRC, is after the launches of the spacecraft featured in the first two movies.
So, no.
From their point of view, sure. But the events in question still took place before the events of the earlier film, right?
Hey, the OP did specify “completely, or at least primarily”. If you indeed RC, you can rule out “completely” – but can you rule out “primarily”?
With the exception of criterion #4 (which was necessitated by the prequel being set about 50 years earlier), the 1964 roman a clef film THE CARPETBAGGERS, based on the Harold Robbins bestseller, has a prequel that was made two years later in 1966, the western NEVADA SMITH.
THE CARPETBAGGERS was set in the 1930s and starred George Peppard as Jonas Cord Jr. a Howard Hughes-ish womanizing industrialist. Alan Ladd played an old cowboy named Nevada Smith with a shady past that Peppard’s father, Jonas Cord Sr., (played by Leif Ericson, who dies early in the film) hired to bodyguard and help raise his son, Peppard.
NEVADA SMITH gave us the prequel, set in the old west and starring Steve McQueen as the young Nevada Smith. A naive young half-white, half-Indian son of a rancher, he returns to the find the smouldering ruins of his home and the burnt remains of his parents (a scene that George Lucas “borrowed” for the first STAR WARS). Smith goes to hunt down his parent’s killers (Martin Landau, George Kennedy, and Karl Malden) after some training in gun-handling and street-smarts by Brian Keith, who plays Jonas Cord, Sr., and who will later hire Smith in THE CARPETBAGGERS. The entire film is actually contained in the original Robbins novel as an extended flashback.
Previous thread on the subject, oddly 9 years and 1 month to the day prior to this one.