A legacy sequel is a years on (think 15-20 years later) film that follows the same characters, ideally with the same actors, many years down the road. Top Gun: Maverick, Bladerunner 2049, and Bill & Ted Face the Music are all recent examples. To make this work at least some of the lead actors need to alive and still acting.
I’ll start: The Truman Show
While the ending of the original is pretty fantastic, there could be an amazing opportunity on commentary on current celebrity and social media culture on visiting Truman many years after. What has he done with his newly found life? How has society reacted to the reality of Truman? Can he live up to the worldwide celebrity? What happened to Christof after his masterpiece has crashed down around him? It’s been nearly 25 years, life goes on.
Jim Carrey and Ed Harris are both still active, as is Laura Linney but I’m not sure she’s someone we’d follow in the sequel.
The Last Starfighter, the fun SF film with early CGI. Robert Preston (Centauri) and Dan O’Herlihy (Grig) have “passed on to a higher dimension”, but Lance Guest, Catherine Mary Stuart, and Norman Snow are still around and acting.
There’s been a lot of water under the bridge since Alex and Maggie took off for the stars. Be interesting to see what’s happened since then. And Xur survived the battle, a la Darth Vader.
And this time they could give them some up-to-date CGI effects.
The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming! deserved a Reagan-era sequel.
Plot: The Russian sub, now under the command of Alan Arkin, had been coming back to the island for trade (vodka for blue jeans) and other “personal reasons”. I.e., that sailor from Barbarella was married with kids to the babysitter. Carl Reiner can’t get anyone to buy his story about the original sub visit. So he goes to the island to interview the locals who “know nothing about it”. The sub returns, shenanigans ensue. The secret gets out, yet it’s a happy perestroika ending for all.
This one goes in a different direction. A Leslie Nielsen-style parody/sequel to Viva Las Vegas. The son of Lucky and Rusty returns with his crew to race in Vegas and redeem his late father’s legacy. Rusty dresses and acts inappropriately around her son. The son being played by a too-old actor who sings badly is a running gag.
The Big Lebowski. It will never happen, the Coens don’t “do” sequels, and they’ve already stated as much. I have no idea what the plot should be. Something about the “little Lebowski” perhaps (Maude’s baby)?
Close Encounters of the Third Kind – The extraterrestrials bring Roy Neary back. Francois Truffaut is long gone, as is J. Allen Hynek (who only got a single shot in the film), but I think the rest of the cast is still around. Maybe they can come up with some interesting revelations. Maybe the aliens have substituted “It’s a Small World, after all” for “When you wish upon a Star”.
Spielberg himself talked about doing a sequel, or a prequel. And the apparently did a prequel TV pilot.
I always thought TBL should have a TV series spin off. Set it 15 years after the movie. Walter gets a PI license and hires the Dude to work for him. Dude turns out to actually be pretty good at solving crimes, largely because everyone dismisses him as a dumb ass stoner. Basically Columbo if Columbo was a pot-head. Maude and their now-teenage kid are part of the cast, after the kid looked up who his dad was and got in contact, which gives the Dude an excuse to mix with the high and mighty in LA when appropriate.
I’ll add a note for a movie that has long been asked for, but never (yet) materialized - King Conan, sequel to Conan the Barbarian and Conan the Destroyer, with Ahhhnold.
Ideally it would be an adaptation or inspired by one of the last Conan stories, an aged but still vital Conan is separated from his retinue and decides enough is enough - his heir is old enough to take control of things and he’s long tired of his role as King, and heads out on his final journey. Although others have their own opinions.
I doubt it would happen, but I’d love to see a sequel to the amazing Legend, with Cruise and Curry returning to their respective roles. The first was about the fantasy world of children becoming adults, and a loss of innocence (among other things). In the sequel, I’d love to see how such things are lost, and yet, hopefully regained in the form of children or grandchildren.
There are others that would interest me, but the need for some or all of the first generation cast would make it difficult at best, such as Labyrinth which I could not see without Bowie, despite the many thoughts of what a story ‘the child’ would have as the next generation Goblin king in other works.
A Bronx Tale: It’s the 1990s, Lorenzo and Carmine have both passed, and C is now married with his own kids, still living in the neighborhood, but dealing with a new kind of gangster.
Dunno. I’d like to see a Conan movie – as I’ve said many times before – that actually used stuff that Robert E, Howard has written. And he didn’t write much about the older Conan. I think the oldest Conan got in his works was in The Hour of the Dragon (also published as Conan the Conqueror). Stories depicting an older Conan were mostly by L. Sprague de Camp, aided and abetted by Lin Carter and Bjorn Nyberg.
Gimme “Tower of the Elephant” or “Rogues in the House” or “Red Nails”, not “Conan of the Isles”!
Serenity - this was the movie made after Firefly was cancelled and it was certainly good enough to warrant a sequel. It’s been 17 years and I think it qualifies.
The Jesus Rolls may have really hurt the chances of a Lebowski return. I’ve always thought that a film based on the Little Lebowski of The Dude and Maude would be a great idea. Esp. if the kid is sort of straight laced.
