When you enter the movie theater, the smell of popcorn wafts through the air. As you are buying tickets, hanging above you is a list of movies showing. What’s making up a majority of that list? Sequels. When you at last sit down, popcorn bucket in hand, a series of trailers play. You are already halfway through your popcorn and you realize something. What makes up a majority of those trailers you just watched? Sequels. Over the last few years the movie industry has been churning out sequel after sequel. It’s time for the sequels to stop.
In 2024, of the top ten highest grossing movies, nine were sequels. The only non sequel on the list, Wicked, will be getting one in 2025. Sequels make Hollywood money. In an article on sequels and remakes, BYU School of Communications associate professor, Scott Church believes nostalgia is a driving force for the release of sequels.
“[Sequels] belong to [a] proven commodity franchise and you throw in nostalgia on top of that, then you create this perfect formula for generating a lot of dollars,” Church said.
The movie industry knows that audiences are more likely to see something they are familiar with. “Gladiator II”, “Beetlejuice Beetlejuice” and “Alien: Romulus” are examples of sequels whose popular original movies were released more than 20 years ago.
However, sequels tend to be considered worse than their original film. The original “Alien” has a 93% Rotten Tomatoes score and 94% audience score. Its sequel, “Alien: Romulus” received an 80% Rotten Tomatoes and an 85% audience score. This is just one in many examples of sequels that performed worse than the film they were based on. Sequels prey on a viewer’s nostalgia only for audiences to feel that they didn’t meet the standards of the original film.
While sequels like “Inside Out 2” and “Deadpool and Wolverine” were well received by audiences, most sequels tend to be disappointing. If sequels aren’t for the audience, why does Hollywood keep making them? Director Francis Ford Coppola, who directed the movies “The Godfather” and “Outsiders”, weighed in on this in an article by the Golden Globes.
“Sequels are not done for the audience or cinema or the filmmakers. It’s for the distributor. The film becomes a brand,” Coppola said.
Hollywood needs to pump the breaks on sequels and start making more original content. With almost 40 sequels set to be released in 2025, one can wonder when and if Hollywood will make this change.
