In the 1980s it seemed like Hollywood hated everything that was going to compete with it: television, video games, books, comics, you name it. If it wasn’t being used as an ancillary product for a movie, then it was the enemy. Why would an executive want to embrace something like Spider-Man or Space Invaders and try turning it into a movie? Which, granted might be why so many movies from the 1980s were classic. Where’s our next John Hughes, already? If there was a video game announced tomorrow based on Ferris Bueller’s DayOff or Weird Science, I would retire this column for eternity. Unless the game sucked.
But what about movies that came out years ago that still live on through video games? Games have single-handedly managed to keep some franchises flush with cash, long before the currently Hollywood trend of retreading, prequelizing, and refurbishing movie happened. Now, you’re just as likely to have a game coming out day in date with the movie, if not a few weeks before in an effort to hype the buzz. But what about those that came before? Here are a few examples.
After spending a chunk of the morning wading through treatises on the socio-political implications of Bruce Willis blowing up a skyscraper, I got to thinking about franchises. I don’t think they’re a bad thing, in theory (and, if you want to get theoretical, definitely check out this post from David Bordwell’s blog, in which the legendary film academic solicits thoughts on sequels from a roundtable of colleagues). You could certainly accuse the sequel-happy studios of laziness–I always mentally cut to a shot of a Disney executive furiously trying to find a summer tentpole to greenlight so he can go on vacation: “Eh. They bought Johnny Depp as a pirate before–maybe they’ll do it again.” But it’s hard to complain about any of this when the audience continues to turn out for franchise films.
So the question becomes, “What do people like about sequels? What are they hoping to see?” If the lure is in large part one of wish fulfillment–if any significant segment of the audience goes to see X-Men 12 because there’s something that X-Men 1-11 didn’t accomplish that they’re still hoping to see–then won’t the success of sequels as a genre fall in direct proportion to the rise in user-generated video? Basically, if fans live in a world in which they can appropriate, manipulate, and juxtapose characters, images and ideas from their favorite films in order to meet any desires left unsatisfied by the original films, why would they then bother to leave the house and pay $12 in order to see an authorized sequel?
Think about that while you watch this Rambo vs. Predator mashup. If a dude with iMovie can pit Stallone against the ultimate opponent, what else is there for John Rambo to accomplish?
In related news, Fox somehow managed to swing a deal to earn money off of Halo toys without having to shell out for the upcoming pic’s special effects.
In what I think is the first instance I’ve seen of a trade publishing a casting item on a documentary, THR reports that Martin Scorsese, Haskell Wexler and Dennis Hopper are among the notables set to be interviewed for a tribute to cinematographers Laszlo Kovacs and Vilmos Zsigmond, “two refugees who changed the look of American cinema.” Related: the above clip is a PSA Kovacs shot for Pain Awareness Month.
Insert “Tuesdays with Happy Gilmore” joke here: Adam Sandler’s production company has purchased an as-yet-unfinished script from Mitch Albom. No details on the script’s content, but we’re sure it has absolutely nothing to do with a youngish stoic dude who reluctantly learns a little something about life.
Just when I thought I had a grasp of what kind of movies are sure to get a sequel or two, and which ones won’t, all my assumptions are being turned upside down. Spider Man? Sure. Pirates? Of course. But a sequel to An Inconvenient Truth? And one for Hal Hartly’s Henry Fool (which, incidentally is one of my favorite films)? Go figure.
Yes, it appears to be true. We’re going to be treated to a sequel of an informative (if slightly slow) documentary about global warming, and another for a high quality film with very little action and rather unpleasant characters. For An Inconvenient Truth Part 2 (I know, it gets your heart beating faster, doesn’t it?), director Davis Guggenheim is scheduled to meet with Paramount next week, so it’s too soon for details. (Will the original film’s star, Al Gore, agree to a sequel? The suspense…)
For the Henry Fool sequel, Hartly made Fay Grim, which picks up seven years later and focuses on the Parker Posey character by the same name. Somehow, Hartly manages to take a movie based entirely in a Queens neighborhood, and move its sequel to Paris, where the CIA also plays a role. Not your typical sequel (but I can’t wait to see it–check out the trailer at Spout).
So do these new developments tell us anything about the future of the sequel? Probably not. Some of the best documentary sequels (although most people don’t call them that) have been around for a while–director Michael Apted’s Up Series (28 Up, 35 Up, etc.), which he began filming in 1963. (Apted began chronicling the lives of 14 seven year olds that year, following up with “sequels” every seven years after.) It’s a brilliant series, but it hasn’t shifted the way most studios think about doing sequels. Neither did Smoke or its sequel (of sorts) Blue in the Face, another example of an atypical movie sequel set. No, it seems the decision to make your average sequel is generally all about what made a lot of money the first time around and might have enough buzz surrounding it to sustain another go. Wouldn’t it be great if the decision to create a sequel was based on the story, and whether it was worthy of another go?
We’ve had a bit of trouble getting this episode to go through the iTunes feed, so we hope this re-post will fix the problem. The original post, with episode description and embedded player, is here.
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