What you are witnessing...before your very eyes...is the capitalistic/cannibalistic nature of Hollywood that accelerated in the 80s.
There were always sequels and series in the movies. From the 30s through the 60s, there were multiple Thin Man movies, Andy Hardy movies, Charlie Chan movies, Mr. Moto movies, Francis the Talking Mule movies, etc. There was Son of Kong(not a patch on the original) and Bride of Frankenstein.
But major classics and hits were rarely sequelled. There was no imperative to make a Gone With the Wind 2, or a Casablanca 2, or a Bridge on the River Kwai 2 or a Ben-Hur 2 or Lawrence of Arabia 2. It just wasn't done. Movies were meant to be respected as "stand alone works of art" and most movies told a "great story with an ending that should be left alone."
I would say that things changed, historically, with Godfather Part II in 1974. The same director(Francis Coppola) made the film as the original. It won the Best Picture Oscar, like the original. For once, a "quality classic" got a sequel and of Oscar quality.
The next sequel that kicked it was "The Empire Strikes Back" following the Number One grosser of all time to that time..Star Wars(which pretty clearly ended with the door open FOR a sequel.)
And that was it. The movie studios in the 80s were taken over largely by people from the TV industry, who knew from series and spin offs and re-doing things over and over and over and only stopped when...properties stopped making money.
Add in corporate takeovers of the movie studios in general -- and the co-opting of Hollywood by Silicon Valley(why do you think so many movies are computer-driven?) -- and here we are.
These franchises will be made over and over and over again, with new casts and directors, past our lifetimes and into the lifetimes of coming generations. Whether or not the movies are "good movies" (or star an 80-year old action hero) really doesn't matter.
PS. I might be instructive to consider "when was the last time that an original idea was made as a movie" that became a franchise.
John Wick in 2014, maybe?
Going way back:
James Bond 1962
Star Wars 1977
Indiana Jones 1981
The Terminator 1984
Jurassic Park 1993
The Fast and the Furious 2001
Batman and Superman predated their origin movies by decades, the Marvel heroes maybe a few decades less (the 60s versus the 30s.)
Will somebody out there ever come up with a NEW franchise origin movie, or are we doomed to the same characters for another 100 years?
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Pete314 (3000)
a year ago
I guess it is hard to PLAN a new franchise. Just make a good movie and it will have its sequel. Make also the sequel good and you come to franchise territory. And usually they fail with the 3rd one (Godfather III, Jurassic Parc III, and - yeah - Pirates of the Caribbean III). It's not easy to satisfy the all the time growing expectations of the audience.
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Karl Aksel (1487)
a year ago
What you are witnessing...before your very eyes...is the capitalistic/cannibalistic nature of Hollywood that accelerated in the 80s.
This is very true. I guess it's only a matter of time before they start reviving old franchises relying almost entirely on deepfake technology, using none of the original actors; just their likeness. We know the technology will one day be there to do it convincingly - the only obstacles are ethical and legal. But if those obstacles were to be overcome, I think it's only a matter of time before we see actors rising from the dead. We have already seen it to some extent in Rogue One.
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roger1 (3623)
a year ago
I guess it is hard to PLAN a new franchise. Just make a good movie and it will have its sequel.
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That's right. Its a rather "sad" formula: no classic REALLY stands alone anymore, if it is a hit. The Godfather COULD have stopped right there. But we got Godfather II. Jaws could have(and SHOULD HAVE) stopped right there, but we got Jaws 2, 3D and 4 (Steven Spielberg had no control over those mostly cheapjack movies, he made sure his later movies had sequel rights for him.)
A bit of a shock -- that has since been repeated -- was when Psycho -- an "old movie" of 1960 -- got a sequel in 1983! 23 years later! That was pretty outrageous at the time. They waited for Psycho director Alfred Hitchcock to die first(in 1980) and then went to town on his biggest hit.
In 1986, they did a sequel to the 1961 movie The Hustler -- The Color of Money with a much older Paul Newman -- and he won the Best Actor Oscar for the SEQUEL! (Under Scorsese's direction.) Paul Newman was a much higher level of Psycho star Anthony Perkins, but in both cases, the actors were iconic...a "blast from the past."
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Make also the sequel good and you come to franchise territory.
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Yep. I recall that Disney launched the first "Pirates of the Caribbean" and another "ride" movie -- The Haunted Mansion(with Eddie Murphy) the same year. Pirates scored big. The Haunted Mansion flopped and there was no franchise (though whaddya know, 20 years later, this very summer -- they are trying again.)
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And usually they fail with the 3rd one (Godfather III, Jurassic Parc III, and - yeah - Pirates of the Caribbean III).
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3rd time is rarely a charm.
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It's not easy to satisfy the all the time growing expectations of the audience.
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Its also hard to hit home runs three times at bat.
CONT
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roger1 (3623)
a year ago
What you are witnessing...before your very eyes...is the capitalistic/cannibalistic nature of Hollywood that accelerated in the 80s.
This is very true. I guess it's only a matter of time before they start reviving old franchises relying almost entirely on deepfake technology, using none of the original actors; just their likeness.
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Yes. Harrison Ford looked good ENOUGH in this opening sequence to convince me that -- in another 10 years say, a "young Harrison Ford" can be ready to star in ANY movie as long as its action-based and low dialogue.
I've offered this for years: the "Hollywood movie industry" and ITS old-fashinoned special effects were long ago swallowed up by Silicon Valley. THAT's Hollywood right now -- and going into the rest of the 21st Century. Along with "indie-type films" to let some real actors really act.
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We know the technology will one day be there to do it convincingly - the only obstacles are ethical and legal. But if those obstacles were to be overcome, I think it's only a matter of time before we see actors rising from the dead. We have already seen it to some extent in Rogue One.
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The issue for some years has been "bringing dead stars back as new stars": Bogart, John Wayne, Marilyn Monroe, Steve McQueen. But perhaps new generations have no interest in THEM. Legal issues MIGHT be overcome if the Harrison Fords and Tom Cruise's of the business CONSENUALLY allow -- NOW -- their 40ish screen personas to keep starring in movies even as they hit 70, 80, 90...of course its too late for Ford now in some ways: his 70's are behing him.
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roger1 (3623)
a year ago
I "buried a lede" up there.
Though sequels of "important films" (and box office hits) took off in the 70s, when a reporter confronted George Lucas about turning movies into comic book serials with Star Wars and its sequels, he said "James Bond got there first, in the 60s."
Which was right. They tested the water with the very cheap Dr. No, spent some more money on From Russia With Love , exploded (Titanic-type grosses) with both Goldfinger and Thunderballand suddenly a new Bond movie was expected every YEAR back then(and then every two years, and now for decades whenever they can get them out.)
But people forget -- that "Goldfinger/Thunderball peak" actually started to DECLINE shortly thereafter. You Only Live Twice, with Connery, made less than the two before it; Connery quit, and then the George Lazenby On Her Majesty's Secret Service underperformed lower that the Connerys(good film it may have been.) All the American spy shows suddenly dropped in ratings or got kicked off the air -- The Man From UNCLE, The Wild Wild West, I Spy -- and the British "Avengers"(not to be confused with today's avengers) soon went off, too.
Bond was rescued for the 70's with Connery again(Diamonds Are Forever) and then Roger Moore in a series of spoof-like Bonds that referenced Shaft(Live and Let Die), Enter the Dragon(The Man With the Golden Gun), Jaws(The Spy Who Loved Me, complete with henchman CALLED Jaws) and Star Wars(Moonraker.) Other emergency actions were taken to revive Bond -- as rather a classic Sherlock Holmes figure for the ages -- and here we are.
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ReelReviews14 (1220)
a year ago
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
And usually they fail with the 3rd one (Godfather III, Jurassic Parc III, and - yeah - Pirates of the Caribbean III).
3rd time is rarely a charm.
<<<<<<<<<<<
Indiana Jones itself is a notable exception. The THIRD film was better received than the second, and the trilogy went out with a bang.
Of course, then they had to screw THAT up by giving us the sub-par Indiana Jones 4 and 5, DECADES later...
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PrimeMinisterX (8706)
a year ago
In the interest of accuracy, I have to point out that there was a Gone with the Wind sequel. It was called Scarlett, which started as a book in 1991, which then became a mini-series in 1994.
I don't blame you for not knowing about it. I don't think many people do.
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roger1 (3623)
a year ago
In the interest of accuracy, I have to point out that there was a Gone with the Wind sequel. It was called Scarlett, which started as a book in 1991, which then became a mini-series in 1994.
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Well, whaddya know!
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I don't blame you for not knowing about it. I don't think many people do.
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I most certainly never heard of it. Thank you.
I suppose the issue here is that somebody decided to sequel Gone with the Wind over 50 years after it was made. There was no intention to make a sequel of it in the 40s(it was a 1939 release.)
That beats Psycho II -- which was 23 years after the original.
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PrimeMinisterX (8706)
a year ago
Yes, and I suppose that's a whole other line of discussion, regarding sequels, prequels etc. that are created without the involvement of the original creator. A recent textbook example is the Rings of Power series, which turned into a terrible debacle.
Here's an interesting bit on Wiki about the Scarlett book:
"Reviewing the novel for The New York Times in 1991, Janet Maslin said the book was a 'stunningly uneventful 823-page holding action.' Donald McCaig, author of Rhett Butler's People, said it was his impression that the Margaret Mitchell estate was 'thoroughly embarrassed' by Scarlett. Scarlett, universally panned by critics, nevertheless was a commercial success. The book sold millions of copies and remains in print.
"When discussing the possibility of his own works receiving authorized sequels after his death, A Song of Ice and Fire author George R. R. Martin called such books 'abominations, to my mind, like [...] Scarlett, the [...] Gone With the Wind sequel'."
I know that the mini-series that resulted in 1994 varies considerably from the book, but I haven't seen it. It has a 6.3 on IMDB, which is not terrible, so maybe it's actually worth watching. . .?
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roger1 (3623)
a year ago
Donald McCaig, author of Rhett Butler's People, said it was his impression that the Margaret Mitchell estate was 'thoroughly embarrassed' by Scarlett. Scarlett, universally panned by critics, nevertheless was a commercial success. The book sold millions of copies and remains in print.
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That is a key issue, here. Movie fans of a certain type -- call them "experts" or "scholars" or "cineastes"(a fancy word, not sure what it means -- would believe that Gone With the Wind should NEVER have gotten a sequel, and clearly it was not a sequel with Clark Gable or Vivien Leigh or Leslie Howard in it(they were all dead -- only Olivia deHavilland was alive then.) At least Psycho II had both Anthony Perkins and Vera Miles from the original.
But the book sold millions of copies and remains in print and maybe the TV movie got good ratings.
That's all that REALLY matters to the studios and the publishing houses, at the end of the day. Makin' money. And they can say: "Its not just US. Customers BOUGHT this product."
(Popular) art vs. commerce.
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PrimeMinisterX (8706)
a year ago
Certainly the studios care about money first and foremost. I wouldn't say that they never care about art but for them undoubtedly they place an emphasis on the BUSINESS part of the movie business.
I would agree that Gone with the Wind should've never gotten a sequel. That said, I'm kind of curious about the mini-series. I looked on RT and it has exactly zero ratings, not even one score from critics or audiences. But I poked around and found that it's streaming for free on a few different services and so I'm going to start episode one and see how it goes.
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mikethemartian (6705)
a year ago
I never saw it but I remember when that TV movie came out. If I remember correctly Joanne Whalley played Scarlett.
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PrimeMinisterX (8706)
a year ago
That is correct, yes. I watched the first episode and have started the second. For a mid-90s TV mini-series it's pretty good so far. It seems only barely connected to the 1939 movie though and no effort was made to try to replicate the look or style of the film.
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