Are 10+ Year-Late Sequels Already on Their Way Out?
An interesting development of late years in Hollywood filmmaking has been the sequels or reboots that are decades after the original or last entry. Look at last year: Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Terminator: Genisys (2015), Vacation (2015), Creed (2015) and Star Wars: The Force Awakens (2015), and already this year we have Zoolander 2, My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2, Barbershop: The Next Cut, Finding Dory, and Independence Day: Resurgence. Plus we have a new Ghostbusters, Bridget Jones, and Bad Santa on the way this year. So this makes one think, what is our curiosity with nostalgia, and is it really as profitable as Hollywood thinks? After all, of the films released in 2015 that I listed, only The Force Awakens made headlines about how much money it made. While the rest were profitable after foreign numbers were included, it’s arguable that with the exception of Fury Road, the main appeal of the other films were all based in the US. Zoolander 2 fell flat at the box office and failed with critics, nobody wrote home about how good Greek Wedding 2 was, and Resurgence is already in a state of becoming a box office disappointment stateside and like Genisys and Vacation will likely depend on the foreign markets to become a large moneymaker. Looking into the future, Ghostbusters has little excitement around it with original fans, and while they’re a long ways out, Bad Santa and Bridget Jones haven’t made a big impact yet on the general movie-going audience. So maybe the craze of the long-delayed nostalgia-stuffed sequels/reboots is already over the hill?
One cynical thought that sometimes gets tossed around too much around movie headquarters in California is that money speaks louder than words. Perhaps, look at how much bad buzz is around the Transformers films, yet the mastermind of stinky blockbusters, Michael Bay, continues to make those films. But then again, there is so much bad blood around the new Ghostbusters film that any plans involving another new film with the likes of Chris Pratt was mentioned once years ago and now can be found next to the map leading to Jimmy Hoffa’s body. The advertisements and franchise name alone guarantees a few bucks being thrown back into Sony’s bank. Even if it hits enough to make a decent profit, if the word on the film is “it stinks”, I don’t expect the Chris Pratt Ghostbusters to move forward. Look at The Amazing Spider-Man 2 (2014). The film made a healthy profit for Sony, but the response on the quality of the film was so bad that now Spider-Man can be seen alongside Iron Man and his clan. Similarly The Hobbit films made close to a billion dollars each (one did over 1 billion), and yet New Line and Warner Bros. have no plans on the books to continue the stories of Middle-Earth. Hmm, I wonder if it had anything to do with the fans not liking them as much as the Lord of the Rings trilogy.
Something tells me of the films coming out this year that fall under the nostalgia that Finding Dory will be the only one to make Hollywood say that sequels that far removed from the original are still profitable. In fact, there’s a good shot that Dory outgrosses Finding Nemo (2003). But will anything else this year get the numbers that made Disney smile the way they did with The Force Awakens? I’ll say nah, probably not. Does 2017 look better? Well, new installments of Friday the 13th, xXx, Trainspotting, King Kong, King Arthur, Power Rangers, Bad Boys, Jumanji, and Blade Runner are on the way, and there’s also the TV-to-film adaptations on the way, like Baywatch, The Six Billion Dollar Man, and CHIPs to name just a few. So clearly if there’s a few decent hits in 2015, then a few misses in 2016, it’s too late and the damage will be done. So these films had better hope that the likes of Ghostbusters, Bridget Jones, and Bad Santa are all moneymakers, because they will set the precedent going forward. If all of them miss, we’ll expect similar results for the first few films of 2017. So you see, it is similar to all the doom-and-gloomers out there who say the over-abundance of superhero films will cause fatigue. Well, before we get to that point, we may get there with the sequels that are 10 or more years after the original.
Speaking of the superhero movie explosion that we’ve had in the past few years that will only increase as time goes on, monetarily speaking the superhero films have done very well, and as long as both the quality and the box office of the superhero films continues, it sets the precedent that other niche or soon-to-be niche genres will follow. So it is a little early to declare this little niche dead, on the way out, or on the decline. A couple of flops doesn’t mean that Hollywood won’t overlook the successes of The Force Awakens and Finding Dory. But if we only have one of those every couple years or every three years, then we can start saying they are on their way out.
