Recently I have discovered and fallen in love with the excellent TV show Breaking Bad airing here in the UK on spike TV, It’s one of those shows that you watch one episode and immediately want to watch another, hence the rise of the box set but now it appears cinema wants to play that game too, at the time of writing just this week, it has been announced the Independence day sequel not even in our cinemas yet will be followed by a parts 3 and 4, the Marvel films are now known as a universe with crossovers in films, individual character films and also an end of term Avengers party to regroup every so often, Ghostbusters are said to be spawning its own spin off films and even Star Wars spin offs too (with one rumoured to be featuring Boba Fett, although having seen an Ewok spin off I will hold my excitement for now)
How times have changed, in my day Police Academy and Friday the 13th were almost treated as a laughing stock as had gone past 4 films and it is this fact alone that shows that cinema now wants to play safe, as TV gets more inspired, big names such as Breaking Bad, the Walking Dead, Game of thrones and The Wire deservedly getting critic and viewer love, cinema is increasingly becoming the home of sequels and remakes, this summer alone, the only original films of late have been San Andreas, Spy, Pixels and forthcoming Pixar film Inside out again Mad Max 4, Jurassic Park 4, Terminator 5, Insidious 3, Ted 2, Magic Mike 2 , Mission Impossible 5 and Despicable me prequel minions and yet another Marvel character Ant Man as well as another outing of that famous detective Sherlock in Mr Holmes and not happy with films back catalogue TV show Entourage makes the leap to the big screen too
Sure there are to be some hidden gems amongst this lake of originality, Jake Gyllenhaal boxing drama Southpaw could be one, but this is a trend that does not seem to be ending and nothing is safe, Mad Max Fury Road follows the last Max film of 1985 (albeit this one was worth the wait) but a new Ghostbusters film is on its way following the films original sequel of 1989 (although they are going for a female busting crew this time to be different) but if you also believe the rumours Gremlins and Goonies are also getting sequels as it seems Hollywood looks at its 80’s back catalogue, what next the Breakfast club to be followed by the late supper club, the little shop to become the BIG shop of Horrors, Edward to find his sister in Edwina Scissorhands (should I patent these ideas?)
I get it, the sticking to the tried and trusted loved originals works, I know that for a fact as I have FOUR Jaws films in my collections although the 3rd and 4th outings are as much for laughs and nostalgia as a comparison to the original but what do you think should be the cut off point, the Star Wars trilogy was always deemed perfect and then tainted by the prequels, should they be able to go on and on or do you think we should appoint a sequel cut off point before another Jaws: The revenge