This week, Robert Rodriguez confirmed that a new script for Sin City 2 is in hand, and hopes to film this year, saying “sooner is better.”
As someone who saw Sin City, I question his enthusiasm (as a multi-celled organism, I question his enthusiasm), but it’s hard to blame him for capitalizing on sequel potential. It’s one of Hollywood’s defining traits that it doesn’t know when to quit. On the off-chance it stumbles across a good idea, it will spit out sequels until the concept is run into the ground. *cough*Matrix*cough*
As movies get more expensive, multiplex real estate gets rarer, and television gets better (in both scope and quality), movies have become all about the bottom line: what can make the studio the most money, the fastest. Ours is an era of superhero blockbusters, 3D extravaganzas, and more hurriedly-developed sequels than you can imagine. Below, ten sequels working their hardest to trick us into wasting two hours of our lives.
1. Transformers 3 (2011)
Shocker, right? Greenlit milliseconds after Transformers: Rise of the Fallen opened, Transformers 3 follows everyone’s favorite set of morphing megaliths EXPLOSIONS as they interact EXPLOSIONS with a human world that may never EXPLOSIONS understand them, in a touching EXPLOSIONS exploration of what it means to be human MEGAN FOX MOSTLY UNDRESSED.
2. Hancock 2 (2012)
For the five of you that saw Hancock: at last, the story continues.
3. Lemony Snicket Sequel 2012
This one surprises me for two reasons: firstly, those kids are old enough to rent cars by now, and secondly, while I thought the movie in itself wasn’t half bad, I was also under the impression that the movie didn’t significantly raise the profile of the books (certainly not on par with the Harry Potter franchise, or even the recent Percy Jackson movie). On the other hand, it’s not like Jim Carrey’s busy, so.
4. Ghost Rider 2 (2011)
Answering that lingering question about the Ghost Rider skull: How’d it get burned? How’d it get burned?! HOW’D IT GET BURNED? HOW’DITGETBURNEDHOW’DITGETBURNED?
5. Bloodrayne: Third Reich (2010)
You are kidding me. (In 2012, nobody step on any flaming paper bags left on your doorstep. Hollywood is just messing with us now.)
6. The Mummy 4: Rise of the Aztec (2010)
The Mummy was pure pulp. The Mummy Returns was a textbook case of Sequelitis, but the actors tried so very hard that we forgave. The third Mummy movie was a mistake. We won’t even speak of this Mummy movie.
7. Journey to the Center of the Earth Sequel (2011)
I guess somebody in Hollywood has a crush on Brendan Fraser!
8. Terminator 5 (2011)
This is good news; Terminator Salvation left me desperate to know what would happen to the careers of all the good actors who got heinously tricked into being in it. Depending on who got optioned for a sequel, we’ll know how many careers are spiraling.
9. Untitled Alien Prequel (2011)
Here’s an interesting one. This Alien prequel/reboot is being headed by Ridley Scott, which indicates that some level of thought has been applied. On the other hand, this is the guy who optioned the Monopoly movie, so those thought processes are pretty suspect. (Plus, an Alien movie without Ripley is no Alien movie, my friend.)
10. Constantine 2 (2012)
Start running, Tilda.
What do you think, moviegoers? Which of these sequels are just insulting? Which sound like train-wrecky good times? And which are you planning to secretly sneak into?
Genevieve is still waiting for a sequel to Silverado. She bides the time by watching other movies and reporting back on her blog.
