I love sequels. And also, there’s something dirty about them.
I love to revisit favorites as much as the next person, but has there ever been a sequel with as much value as the original it’s coming from? I’m not talking about whether or not there’s ever been a sequel better than the original (there’s been lots), I’m talking about whether it’s possible a sequel could hold as much intrinsic VALUE–culturally, historically, artistically, etc.–as an original that comes firing on all cylinders out of the gate and makes you say “I want more of that.”
And movies are a business, so it’s like…yeah, you do want more of it, but why are they giving it to you? Why build a new wing on an old building when you could just build a new building and get a cool little town going? And the answer is, of course, because they think they will make more money this way than the other way. The other way being: giving you something untested, untried, and unknown in the hopes that you respond to it the same you did the last time they gave you something untested, untried, and uknown.
So, instead, it’s “Here you go, again.”
But we’re smarter than that, aren’t we? “You can’t just give me the same thing again!” we say. “Make it better!”
And they say, “We don’t even know how we made the first one so good in the first place. You don’t understand! Movies are a crapshoot! We hope this stuff works, but we don’t really know until it comes out.”
And we say, “Give it to me again. And you better not screw it up.”
And they say, “Okay, okay…” and then they go back into their gold-plated studio and they talk it out amongst themselves and they say, “We may not be able to guarantee it’ll be better, but we sure as hell can make it bigger, right? Might fool ’em. Might even work.”
It’s a bit craven, isn’t it?
THEM: Here’s that thing you liked before…again! Bigger, bolder, and now with more sidekicks. More explosions. A retcon or five. And a pet monkey. Maybe there were no monkeys in the first film, but this one–it’s got all the stuff you loved the first time, we promise–but now it’s also got a monkey and it dances. Everybody loves dancing monkeys. Especially when he hops on the shoulder of that old man without the teeth who ad libbed that one line you laughed at so much the first time and is now back to deliver that line again, this time with a wink so you feel like you’re on the inside of something even though this is, like, 100% the most pandering, fan service-y thing we could do. Gosh, you love that old man. And now he’s sharing the screen with the monkey? How are you not loving this already?
US, A FEW YEARS AGO: I am SO loving this already. Where’s the Funko Pop?
US, THIS YEAR: No thanks.
I think the most exciting thing to happen in cinema since the inception of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (as a longtime comic nerd, sorry, 2008 was seminal) is happening this year: audiences are rejecting sequels. They are rejecting the dancing pet monkey and embracing original films again. Finally.
Barbie. Oppenheimer. Sound of Freedom. Elemental. Crud, you can kind of lump Super Mario Bros. in there.
All massively successful films. A couple billion dollar earners in there. All gambles in one form or another.
And the sure-thing failures in their wake? Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania. Shazam! Fury of the Gods. Fast X. The Flash. Mission:Impossible Dead Reckoning Part One. Indiana Jones and the Dial of Destiny. Transformers: Rise of the Beasts.
Yeah, there have been some sequels this year that performed decently well (Guardians, Spider-Verse, etc.), but all of the above films underperformed in a big way. And some of them are really good movies! (Do NOT sleep on the new M:I film–one of the best in the series) But, audiences sent a pretty clear signal this year with what they chose to support:
“We don’t want the same thing but better or bigger again. We’re bored of it. Give us something new.”
And, thankfully, a few really good films were able to step up to the plate and say, “Okay!”
It’s awesome. We needed this. I love sequels, but I’m so glad for this.
The box office feels a little less dirty these days. It’s not JUST a business, after all. Movies are our most universal art. They’re important. They say something about who we are. And I love it when they say more than “Monkey = money.”
This year, the dancing monkey is napping. How cool is that?
And, on a personal level, yeah, as the guy behind a little movie coming out later this year that’s got a pretty strong streak of originality, I’m encouraged. The entire time I’ve been developing The Shift Film, it being a completely original film has been a knock against it. Its most obvious weakness.
But now? Now, I’m thinking its originality might be one of its biggest strengths.
I hope so, I really do. I hope December audiences maintain the spirit of the Summer and give The Shift a chance to do something new and different. I hope they’ll give themselves over to a film that isn’t going to be quite what they expect because it’s NOT the same thing they loved before. Even in the faith film space we’re butting up against, The Shift is not going to go the way you think.
And I hope you, the audience, will forgive the lack of monkey. An oversight, I assure you.
Gonna fix that in the sequel.
Originally published on Facebook on 8/10/23
Brock Heasley 