Sequels: Cynical Money-spinners or Emotional Investments?
In the world of movies, there is nothing better than stumbling across a great film that tantalizes you so much that you instantly want to come back for more once the credits roll. As a child, it was easy to do this, recapturing and furthering the magic of a movie by grabbing your action figures and playing out the role in much the same way that you might have played Wrestlemania 2 on your Playstation to make sure the right WWE Superstars won the main title.
As an adult, though, it can be slightly harder.ย Thankfully, Hollywood has realized that the need to get to the bottom of all of those loose ends at the end of a movie means that they can get another movie made to keep the interest going, and going, and going.
The Magnificent Seven and Alien: Keeping You Curious
Perhaps the biggest challenge here, though, is how to keep fans curious and engaged with the movies in-between releases. Some companies have utilized the widespread popularity of slot games on mobile casinos to plug this hole; theย Sticky Bandits online slot game, for instance, has enough of a Wild West theme, with its vivid wild symbols of train heist villains, to keep fans of The Magnificent Seven interested before rumors of a remake are confirmed or otherwise. The same can also be said for Baywatch and adult comedy Ted, which both have companion slot titles.
This particular use of slots builds on the previous use of video games. The release of games like Alien Isolationย at a time when the new wave of Alien films were being released was no coincidence. Again, this trend has helped to keep the magic and enjoyment of the films aliveย or, at the very least, it reminds fans that there is more to come.
“Revenge Of Return Of The Jedi”ย byย JD Hancockย (CC BY 2.0)
Perhaps, though, the newest and most intriguing development in this respect can be seen in the Star Wars world, where the release of Rogue One: A Star Wars story shows that Disney are not just prepared to make sure you enjoy a new Star Wars Movie every other year, but also a spin-off world that sits separately from the standard sequel structure. These help to fill in those bits of information that fans want to know about, like how the Death Star plans were stolen.
“Alien”ย byย Anderson Manciniย (CC BY 2.0)
With no pressure to come up with a truly original idea, a theme and cast that is familiar to the audience already, and (normally) a positive review the first time out for the sequel to piggy-back on, sequels can easily be looked at as simply money-makers in the purest sense. Despite this, the fact remains that some of the best movies of all time are sequels, with the likes of the Empire Strikes Back, Blade Runner 2049, and even Aliens all arguably surpassing the original movies they followed on from. Furthermore, perhaps the most interesting thing about sequels is that they don’t always, or even normally, go on to make more money than the original film.
Day 8: A Movie that makes you sad.
Toy Story 3
(I was a total mess at that ending)#30daymoviechallenge pic.twitter.com/EGo511mRkGโ Tom Fletcher (@tomfletcher89) June 10, 2017
Although we can all look back and name sequel flops like Jaws 2, which suffered from the lack of interest from the original director to return to the franchise and was subsequently panned by critics, itโs worth respecting the world of the sequel rather than being overly cynical about it. After all, were it not for the world of sequels, we would never have experienced the pure, brutalย emotional turmoil at Toy Story 3 (donโt pretend you didnโt shed a tear!).
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