Monday, August 22, 2011

Sequels And The Emergence of Prequels In Hollywood

Cindy Carrol
I want to thank Ruby for letting me blog here with the Greater Fort Worth Writers.
Hollywood loves the sequel. They love sequels because the franchise has a track record. If a movie does reasonably well you can almost guarantee it will have a sequel or ten. I have to admit I enjoy a sequel. As long as they don’t go overboard and have half a dozen sequels or more. There should be a limit. I’ve lost count how many Friday the 13th sequels there are now. And we all know that the sequel is very rarely as good as or better than the original. So why do we still watch them? Because we either like the characters or the premise so we want to see more of it. Hollywood counts on that.

Of course it’s not just Hollywood that has sequels. I love books with sequels. But I also feel that there should be a limit. After twenty books of the same characters I know I want to see some new characters. Maybe I haven’t found the right series yet, one that I would read no matter how many books there are. I look forward to finding characters I love THAT much.

The Scream movies were great. The first one brought back the horror movie genre with a twist. It was one of the best horror movies I had seen in years after suffering through a decade of bad slasher films. With that franchise I thought the third one was actually the best movie of the three. I haven’t seen the fourth one and have to admit I rolled my eyes when I found out another movie in the franchise was being released.

But what about prequels? They are becoming more popular in Hollywood. The belief is that audiences want to see what happens before that first movie. Gain some insight into the story and characters. One upcoming prequel to look forward to, at least for me, is the 2012 The Hobbit - a prequel to Lord of the Rings. One prequel I’m skeptical about is the prequel to Alien. I’m not sure if they can pull that one off.

I recently saw Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Really good prequel to the original movie. There were a lot of nods to the original which I loved. Watching that made me want to watch the original all over again. It also made me want another remake of Planet of the Apes but one that was actually good.

There’s another prequel out now in theatres but I won’t give away the title because I don’t want to spoil it for people who might want to see the movie.

What’s your favourite prequel or sequel?

I talk about the differences and similarities between novels and scripts in my workshop Is That Hollywood Calling? - How Thinking Like a Screenwriter Can Improve Your Novel. Comment here to be entered to win a lecture packet. If you don’t win, don’t worry! There’s still time to register for the class at: http://www.blogger.com/goog_219735103

Contact Cindy
http://www.cindycarroll.com/blog
http://www.facebook.com/AuthorCindyCarroll





7 comments:

Anonymous said...

I never thought much about prequels. Would that be like the dreaded backstory of a novel? Most movies I see these days aren't worth the money so I'm not sure I'd want to see a prequel.
Carl

Ruby Johnson said...

Cindy:
Thank you so much for visiting our blog. You've given us lots to think about. There are some movies that I can't imagine as prequels or sequels. However, I could imagine that for PLANET OF THE APES. However, I'm not sure, I'd go see the prequel because I didn't like the movie.

Elisa DeLany said...

I'm not a huge fan of either, to tell the truth. Sequels for me rarely ever hold up to the awesomeness that was the first one, and prequels tend to get bogged down in a mire of 'this is how so and so happened.' But I do like series that aren't necessarily in numerical order. Repeating characters are fun when they're not tied down in a strict timeline.

Cindy Carroll said...

Hi Carl.

I agree. A lot of movies aren't worth the money anymore. I usually wait to see them for free on demand.

Cindy Carroll said...

Hi Ruby.

I liked the first movie. And the prequel was pretty good.

Cindy Carroll said...

Hi Marlene.

So true about the sequels. The originals are almost always so much better. For prequels if they don't get bogged down in the explanation they can be good. I'm really hoping The Hobbit will be good and not get bogged down.

Cindy Carroll said...

And the winner of the lecture packet is Marlena! Please send your email address to Ruby so she can forward it to me.

I will be sending the packet August 31 after the blog tour is over.

Link Within

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...