Well, I guess there were remakes going way back, although mostly for certain sorts of films?
But, for sequels, I’ve seen comments over the years like “They didn’t make a Citizen Kane II.”
(I’m also troubled that nearly everything is about comic book characters now, but maybe that’s almost an inevitable consequence of cgi having arrived.)
Scripts are bad, it’s kids who go see movies, TV is better, reality TV and the 24 hour news cycle have changed the preferences and attention capability of people.
Sequelism is a sign of decay which would develop over time. It would have been seen as embarrassing to studios in previous eras.
You could make parallels with Trumpism.
Sequels have been around for decades. The Thin Man (1934) spawned five sequels in the thirties and forties. I can’t remember how many Andy Hardy movies there were but it was a bunch.
The Shiek (1921) and Son of the Sheik (1926)
So sequels aren’t anything new in film (I doubt these are the first). The difference now is that sequels are expected for any successful film.
The reason is money. Movies are expensive, so you want a sure thing. A sequel has name recognition; those who liked the first will usually see the sequel. With a built-in audience, it’s easier to commit the money. You used to be able to do this with big names, but few names are that big anymore (it’s the movies that got small).
So you see a lot of sequels and franchise films because they’re a better investment than a new one.
They still don’t make sequels for movies that are the current equivalent of Citizen Kane. Go back ten years and look at the movies that got nominated for a Best Picture Oscar: Brokeback Mountain, Capote, Crash, Good Night and Good Luck, and Munich. None of them got a sequel (although Crash got a short-lived TV series).
The movies that get sequels are the franchises. And they’ve always existed alongside the prestige movies. Go back to 1941. Alongside Citizen Kane, you’ll see movies like Babes on Broadway, Keep 'Em Flying, Life Begins for Andy Hardy, Road to Zanzibar, and Shadow of the Thin Man (all of which made more money than Citizen Kane).
The Italian hero Maciste debuted in 1914, and had 26 sequels in the next 13 years, then 25 more sequels in the 1960s.
We did this thread last year, which I guess makes the current thread a sequel?
Anyway, it covers a lot of ground: old-time movie serials are handwaved away as not counting, unless one serial was a big enough hit to get followed up with another serial; you’ve got a Zorro sequel in the '20s, Bride of Frankenstein and et cetera in the '30s, the whole James Bond franchise kicking off half a century ago, and so on, from Tarzan to Inspector Clouseau, you name it.
And while there wasn’t a sequel to CITIZEN KANE, there’s THE GODFATHER, not to mention IN THE HEAT OF THE NIGHT before it, and STAR WARS after, and so on.
Yeah, “While a critical success, Citizen Kane failed to recoup its costs at the box office. The film faded from view after its release…” Making sequels of a film that didn’t make much money in the first place isn’t “sure money.”
Bob Hope and Bing Crosby made HOW many “Road” movies? Yeah, sequels are nothing new.
One film that did make a ton of money in the '40s – and, like CITIZEN KANE, was up for the Oscar for Best Picture, only it won – was GOING MY WAY, which promptly got a sequel, because of course it did.
To be honest, it’s just another example of how money calls the shots. Marvel and the other publishers have seen diminishing returns on comic sales for a very long time, but they know they’re sitting on valuable intellectual property. When they proved that a high budget superhero film could succeed, they opened the flood gates. Marvel has been working on a ten-year development and release schedule for a long time. Even if their movies started flopping one after the other, it’d be a couple of years before we stopped seeing new ones (assuming they’d finish what was under way).
Even a link between movies and comics isn’t entirely new, though. For example, The Shadow. The character started in radio in the 30’s and very quickly moved into both film and comics.
On a related note, the word is that Lady Gaga is set to appear in the 4th iteration of A Star is Born. 1937, 1954, 1976, 2017? What happened to 1997?
Hollywood seesaws a lot. For a time remakes (or sequels) do well, so they make a lot. Many of those bomb. So they crank it down (but don’t entirely stop). Then a couple of remakes do really well. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Another example from the comics: Mandrake the Magician, who (a) narrowly beat the Shadow into the movies, and who (b) earlier this month was announced as getting yet another shot at the big screen all these decades later.
Sequels as part of a running series is understandable. What I find pathetic is that Hollywood feels the need to make sequels for movies that were stand-alones for a decade or more (e.g., Zoolander, Dumb and Dumber, Independence Day).
It is my recollection that years ago there were simply fewer movies made each year. Back in the 80’s movie theaters had 2 or 3 screens. Prior to that, they probably had 1. Now theaters have more like 20. Some of those 20 show the same movie, but there are certainly more movies coming out each year now than 40 years ago. More movies leads to more sequels.
Heh. And to think that, back in '48, Kirk Alyn was such a hit as Clark Kent/Superman, with Noel Neill as Lois Lane, and Tommy Bond as Jimmy Olsen, and Pierre Watkin as Perry White, that they all came back for ATOM MAN VS SUPERMAN in 1950.
I mention this because, at the time, they couldn’t do a realistic “flying” effect, and they knew it, so they had to swap in an animated Superman when he’d zoom off!
There were also 10 Ma and Pa Kettle movies from 1947 to 1957 and 28 Blondie movies between 1938 and 1950. :eek:
And there’s a movie that deserved a sequel. I am a fan of The Shadow. I would have been happy with a well done sequel. But it died at the one movie.
Same with The Rocketeer, and The Phantom. One and done movies.
They could probably have franchised Lassiter or High Road to China and had movies better than Temple of Doom or Crystal Skull.
That’s nothing.
Republic’s B-western series The Three Mesquiteers, featured 51 (count 'em, 51!) movies between 1936 and 1943, for an average of just over 6 movies per year! They are best remembered today, to the extent they’re remembered at all, for the 8 entries in the series that starred John Wayne, just before Stagecoach happened.
I think that talking about the current film model as “sequels” is getting it wrong.
Franchises. The word is franchises. You get franchised characters, remakes, spin-offs, sequels, prequels, movie adaptation from TV shows, sidequels, reimaginings, live-action adaptations of cartoons- you name it.
And Frodo Baggins is to blame. Yes, really.
Because Hollywood has always known that familiar characters and stories are money in the bank- or at least more money than original characters in a film of similar quality would be. The problem was that up until this century, new parts of a franchise had to be started from scratch. Terminator is a big hit? You are bound to want a sequel- but of course now you have to wait until Arnold has a free couple of months in the middle of his busy schedule, Cameron first needs to get off his system a movie about water aliens- and before you know it seven years have passed.
Oh, there were exceptions, your Bond films and so on, but those were outliers- nobody thought the same model could be applied to other movies.
And then you have Lord of the Rings. This was three films with a giant budget that were shot back to back, without waiting to even find out if the first one would bring any money. And it succeeded. The risk paid off and the budget was drastically reduced, since you didn’t need to get new contracts for a new team.
Marvel applied this system to their franchise- got up- and- coming- but- not- there- yet actors like Chris Evans with iron clad contracts not just for the sequels, but related movies, and made films with a long term plan.
This was helped by the fact that the movie star as we know it had pretty much disappeared. Before having access to reviews at the flick of a phone, mostly audiences went to see movies starring some actor they had liked in some other film. This became less prominent and unknowns desperate enough to sign fifteen movie deals, like Chris Pratt, became the new superstars.
Now, personally, if a movie is good, I don’t care if it’s part of a franchise or not. It’s not the end of the world. But if you wanna blame somebody, blame Frodo. And maybe Lucas.