How Did These Get Made?

[wyldride 285]

It might be amusing to, instead of focusing on a single movie, do a special episode on a franchise: Specifically any franchise which has more sequels than can be reasonably justified by the initial outing.

 

For example, Bring It On could reasonably justify maybe one sequel, not four, especially since they are all just retellings of the same story with new casts. American Pie might have been justified doing a couple of sequels, but seven is too many.

 

There are far too many Police Academy movies. In the Name of the King got sequels. Scorpion King has sequels. It's that sort of thing.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

It might be amusing to, instead of focusing on a single movie, do a special episode on a franchise: Specifically any franchise which has more sequels than can be reasonably justified by the initial outing.

 

For example, Bring It On could reasonably justify maybe one sequel, not four, especially since they are all just retellings of the same story with new casts. American Pie might have been justified doing a couple of sequels, but seven is too many.

 

There are far too many Police Academy movies. In the Name of the King got sequels. Scorpion King has sequels. It's that sort of thing.

A lot of that was straight to the home video market though, so I wouldn't really wonder why there were like 11 "Bring It On" and "Scorpion King" movies or like a whole spin-off franchise to "American Pie" (the answer is "cash grab"), although I do think it's interesting that it's very existence probably hurt the potential box office when "American Pie" actually had a PROPER sequel after nearly a decade of dormancy. Also, Universal seems to be the biggest offender when it comes to these.

 

I WOULD like to see a focus though on franchises that continued to have theatrical releases after jumping the shark, such as:

 

-Friday the 13th: Every installment going back to about 5 seemed to get weirder if you look at it. You had a Jason movie with a Jason impersonator (5) before the return of Jason proper in what would become the iconic super zombie form (6), who would then face off with Carrie-lite (7) before running off to Manhattan (8), only to be revealed as a demonic force of nature (9) and then inexplicably returning from Hell, only to get frozen for hundreds of years before being unleashed on a spaceship in the future (10). Sometime between 9 and 10, he fought Freddy Krueger and co-starred in a very special episode of "Supernatural" (remake).

 

-Halloween: Like "Friday the 13th", it was a simple slasher franchise that started to derail somewhere in the middle, but never quite made it to space. While part 3 is often looked at as the standout, as it LITERALLY had nothing to do with anything else, I think that part 8 would provide the best material for a HDTGM. It's Dangertaining!

 

-Jaws: The only series where the shark managed to jump ITSELF. "Jaws: The Revenge" was already covered of course, but man, it was fuckin' weird getting there, and I think that part 3 was the REAL "How Did This Get Made"-worthy installment.

 

-Universal Soldier: I'm SORT OF bending my own rule here, but there were two theatrical installments, and I think it's a rare case where the series actually got BETTER with the limited release/VOD/straight-to-video/whatever movies that followed. The first one was great 90's action by the director of "Independence Day", "Godzilla", and at least 7 other movies where the White House and/or New York get destroyed, and easily top 3 for each of the leads, JCVD and Dolph Lundgren. The second was fucking garbage (with an awesome soundtrack), but still worth talking about, while the third one (after a couple of TV movies that usually don't get bunched in with the legit ones), "Regeneration", was a down and dirty, gritty Bourne-like adventure. The fourth one, made by the same team as the one before, shifted gears again, mixing hard sci-fi, horror, and some of the sickest fights committed to film to come up with something not entirely unlike "Apocalypse Now". Great stuff.

 

Saw: A simple, clever little flick that spawned a franchise that managed to get completely up it's own ass within four movies, and then kept going for another three.

 

I'm sure there are quite a few more, but these are the only ones I have sitting on my shelf at the moment...

[wakefresh 689]

All of the Resident Evil movies should go into this category as well. I do not see how they keep making them every couple of years and they never are a big, huge hit. Its like, if the numbers that "Resident Evil 6:Aftermath Requiem Delirium" does are that good to greenlight another, then we should be eighteen movies deep into a Mortal Kombat franchise.

 

All of the Underworld sequels belong in this category as well. It should have stayed at just one movie, but now, the lichens(sp?) are mating with the vampires and having hybrid babies and no one can find any fabric to make clothes out of besides patent leather.

[PlanBFromOuterSpace 3138]

All of the Resident Evil movies should go into this category as well. I do not see how they keep making them every couple of years and they never are a big, huge hit. Its like, if the numbers that "Resident Evil 6:Aftermath Requiem Delirium" does are that good to greenlight another, then we should be eighteen movies deep into a Mortal Kombat franchise.

 

All of the Underworld sequels belong in this category as well. It should have stayed at just one movie, but now, the lichens(sp?) are mating with the vampires and having hybrid babies and no one can find any fabric to make clothes out of besides patent leather.

Yeah, those "Resident Evil" movies never do more than barely above-average business in the States, but have really cleaned up internationally. Whenever anyone starts the "American audiences have no taste and don't like good movies" debate, I like to throw that argument at them. I understand that explosions are the universal language, but there is some truly stupid shit that the rest of the world likes a lot more than we do.

[seanotron 2307]

Yeah, those "Resident Evil" movies never do more than barely above-average business in the States, but have really cleaned up internationally. Whenever anyone starts the "American audiences have no taste and don't like good movies" debate, I like to throw that argument at them. I understand that explosions are the universal language, but there is some truly stupid shit that the rest of the world likes a lot more than we do.

 

I often bring this up as well. Bad taste is universal, no need to dump on Americans for it when everyone else is just as bad.

[wakefresh 689]

Yeah, those "Resident Evil" movies never do more than barely above-average business in the States, but have really cleaned up internationally. Whenever anyone starts the "American audiences have no taste and don't like good movies" debate, I like to throw that argument at them. I understand that explosions are the universal language, but there is some truly stupid shit that the rest of the world likes a lot more than we do.

 

It is interesting that these make money overseas. They wanna see Milla Jojovich in tight outfits fighting other beautiful women in tight outfits. Remember, the Taylor Lautner movie, "Abduction," did gangbusters overseas as well; they wanna see those T-Rex arms.