Opinion – Cinematic Rebirth: How a Sequel Can Revitalize or Ruin A Story

Published by CisternYard Media on January 12th, 2024 (featured in The Yard: Vol 13 Issue 2)

Written by Max Meyers

If you were to take a look at the numbers for the worldwide box office in 2022, the top three films are as follows: Avatar: The Way of Water, Top Gun: Maverick, and Jurassic World Dominion. That's not to mention the slew of franchises and sequels that take up the rest of the slots, but there’s a shared trait between all of these films: none of them are "original films," they're all sequels, reboots, or continuations of a familiar and franchised intellectual property (IP). In the case of Avatar: The Way of Water, the number of moviegoers that flocked to the theaters seemed to come out of nowhere. The original Avatar (2009) was consistently joked and “memed” upon as being a forgettable film despite being the highest-grossing movie of all time (a crown that was revoked in 2019 by Avengers: Endgame, only to be returned in 2022 when a 4k re-release of Avatar ran in theaters). However, in a shock to everyone, Avatar: The Way of Water destroyed box office predictions and raked in a whopping $2.3 billion worldwide (making it the third highest grossing film of all time worldwide). Somehow, this delayed sequel that came out 13 years after its predecessor revitalized a film that had all but been forgotten and left behind (or so we perceived). What is this cinematic and spectatorial rebirth, why does it happen, and what makes or breaks one?

Now more than ever, we're seeing an almost overwhelming majority of films that are sequels, reboots, nostalgia-bait remakes, biopics, or films based on a famous IP or franchises. While "original" cinema is certainly out there and still very prevalent and exciting, that's just not what the masses are going to and supporting the most. Taking another look at the numbers for the worldwide box office in 2022, we see that the top 10 highest grossing films of the year are all sequels or reboots. Omitting spot number 11 that is filled by a $460-million-grossing film from China, you'd have to jump to 17th place to find another film not based on famous IP, connected to a cinematic universe, or that is a biopic based on a popular famous figure. Perhaps this is out of an audience desire for nostalgia, familiarity and comfort in something already loved. Regardless, it is clear that many films being made right now are not only falling into this category previously described, but it is most definitely what is popular among audiences that go to the theaters.

That is not to say that this is all bad, as that would be a gross generalization; however, the way in which these projects are handled can determine the success or death of a franchise in more ways than just money. While in my opinion, movies are art first and anything else second, at the end of the day the film industry is still a business and movies need to make money. As a result, the formula that studios seemed to have stumbled upon is taking less artistic risks, and focusing more on projects that audiences will already have a stake and interest in prior to even seeing it as a way to ensure financial return on investment. However, it can sometimes feel like studios are a bit tone-deaf towards criticism of a film's artistic qualities, looking only at box office and financial success as a green-light to make more of the same that might lack in creativity and quality. Both Jurassic World and Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom each grossed over $1 billion at the box office, yet the consensus from both audiences and critics were mixed or poor. Despite that, it seems they didn't take notes from audience reception, as Jurassic World Dominion still contained similar issues, yet still grossed over $1 billion as well. To business executives, these movies might be a success, but for fans and movie-goers, they're anything but one. And for some reason, we as audiences seem to fall for it every time, hoping to see a change in quality and being disappointed every time.

Following the money isn't necessarily a bad thing every time. As someone who constantly seeks out and loves all kinds of film, some of my favorite movies as of recent years have been sequels or films belonging to a franchise or popular IP. Toy Story 4, Joker, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, Glass Onion: A Knives Out Mystery, Top Gun: Maverick, The Batman, Spiderman: Into the Spiderverse, and Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, are just a few of my favorite films over the past 5 years, all of which are sequels, reboots, or stories connected to or based on a famous IP. However, these feel like the outliers that emphasize the power that a reboot or sequel can have; these films break the mold in a sea of mediocre and soulless corporate outputs. They care about storytelling first, and the business second.

Perhaps the best example in recent memory of two films that are nearly identical on paper yet completely opposite in terms of quality and revival power are Top Gun: Maverick and Jurassic World Dominion. Both are late sequels to 80s/90s classics (Jurassic World Dominion is technically the third in a series of late sequels/a soft reboot to Jurassic Park, being the 6th in the franchise as a whole). Both bring back the same cast members and beloved characters from the original classics. Both are produced by huge corporate film studios: Paramount Pictures and Universal Studios, respectively. Both were grand slams at the box office, with each making over $1 billion worldwide. Both were released in Summer 2022. However, there couldn't be a bigger difference between them in terms of quality and heart, with Top Gun: Maverick being the clear winner. Jurassic World Dominion feels completely devoid of heart and an interesting story. The "villains" are not well written, the overall story was not too exciting and dialogue doesn't feel well crafted, and there seemed to be a huge disconnect between this film and its previous sequels, tonally and narratively. Additionally, it lacks the excitement to feel like the grand conclusion it was marketed as, seemingly ending the Jurassic Park saga with this film. Bringing back the old actors was meant to be exciting and hyped, yet it fell flat, with the reunion ultimately not feeling as triumphant as it should've. And overall, it's just not very interesting. I remember writing in a review of the film that "you know there's something wrong if Jeff Goldblum's presence is the best part of a movie with dinosaurs," which was meant as a compliment to Goldblum but certainly not to the film. Top Gun: Maverick takes everything wrong with Jurassic World Dominion and does it right, and then some. It balances exciting blockbuster spectacle with a great story and a ton of heart. The incredible scenes of pilots flying with real jets is unbelievably engrossing and thrilling, but it's the story and characters involved in those sequences that keeps you interested and keeps the movie fresh throughout its over-2-hour runtime, not just the exciting visuals. Jurassic World Dominion tries to rely on exciting dinosaur sequences to engage the audience throughout its 2.5-hour runtime, but they're devoid of any stakes or feeling because the overall movie itself is uninteresting and un-engaging outside of that. Top Gun: Maverick brings back characters from the original while developing new ones too, balancing the desire to see your favorites from the classic while still delivering on something new and worth sharing. And it perfectly calls back to many of the iconic moments and nuances that made the original special and memorable. To me, Top Gun: Maverick is a prime example of a desire to further explore a character and story that deserves to be told, rather than wanting to make a sequel just for money.

Top Gun: Maverick was a late sequel that proved that it deserved to be made, that it wasn't just soulless cash-grab. And by doing so, it revitalized the love for a decades-old franchise, not only in fans of the classic, but a new generation too that was exposed to these films for the first time. Almost everyone I know walked out of Top Gun: Maverick with an overall positive experience; I can't say the same about Jurassic World Dominion. To me, that film killed the Jurassic Park franchise and delivered the final nail in its coffin. The original Jurassic Park is still incredible and untouchable, but despite its box office success, there's very few redeeming qualities about Jurassic World Dominion, turning off fans and killing the potential for easy growth of new ones. On the other side, Top Gun: Maverick achieved both general audience and critical success. Not only was it the 2nd highest grossing movie in the world, but it also achieved critical success as well, gaining 6 Academy Award nominations including Best Picture (and it won the award for Best Sound). The dichotomy between these two films is a key example on how cinematic rebirth can make or break a film, and ultimately a beloved franchise.

Reboots, remakes, and sequels shouldn't dominate the market. In a New York Times article written by Martin Scorsese in 2019 addressing his comments and opinions on Marvel films as "amusement park cinema," he said that "if people are given only one kind of thing and endlessly sold only one kind of thing, of course they're going to want more of that one kind of thing." Right now, we see a dominance of one thing in the industry and in theaters: reboots, remakes, biopics, famous IP/franchise films, and sequels. A famous tweet that circulated quite a bit in May of 2022 was from @mattsinger who shared a screenshot of all the showtimes for Doctor Strange in the Multiverse of Madness at the AMC in Times Square (linked to an archived page as the original tweet seems to have been deleted), with a grand total of 70 different showtimes in one day. Firstly, no movie deserves 70 showtimes in one day, and secondly, that's an abundant amount of theaters being taken up by the same movie and thus taking theater space away from other movies. For the independent filmmaker looking for their big break, or even the artistic film from a critically acclaimed director or with a famous actor, it's not only discouraging to see a film take up that much unnecessary space, but it presents a real and dangerous struggle for your film to make a profit (and thus a struggle for more original, unique, and exciting films to made). I love this art form and think that championing and financially supporting independent and "original" cinema is so important, now more than ever. We can say that we want films that are different from this overwhelming norm, but unless we get out and spend money on films like that, studios and the film industry as a whole aren't gonna hear us.

In a film class I took recently, we learned about the Hollywood New Wave, also known as the Hollywood Renaissance. It was a film wave characterized by artistic freedom, finally abolishing the Hays Code in 1968 that censored cinema for decades. As a result of Hays Code films not doing well, low attendance rates in theaters, and television becoming ever so popular, studios decided to take chances in young auteurist filmmakers and allowed some young filmmakers to fully turn their visions into movies without a lot of studio control or interference. From this spawned what are commonly labeled as some of the most influential and critically acclaimed movies of all time, such as The Godfather, Taxi Driver, Dog Day Afternoon, and Network, to name a few. It was a cinematic rebirth in and of itself that revitalized interest in the movies again. But like most movements, it did not last, ending in the late 70s and early 80s with the return of spectacle/ blockbuster cinema in Jaws and Star Wars. In the same way that audiences were bored of studio era films and wanted something fresh (resulting in the Hollywood Renaissance), people were bored once again of these art-films and wanted something new. Today, we're seeing that now with this age of reboots and remakes dominating the market, yet its popularity and status in the eyes of the audience/critics is decreasing. People are bored of Marvel, Star Wars, biopics, remakes. There can only be so many cameos and crossovers before audiences just aren't excited by it anymore. They want something new again.

Movies are expensive. It takes hundreds, thousands of people to make a good movie, and sometimes artistic visions can demand millions of dollars to be spent. It makes sense that studios are weary of spending millions on a project with no guaranteed return on investment, but I wishfully (and perhaps naively) believe that film is an art-form first and business second, and risks deserve to be taken for the sake of good art (especially by studios with the money and financial security to do so). Some of the biggest risks in Hollywood, taking chances on new directors with wild ideas, resulted in some of the greatest films and filmmakers of all time. Like the Hollywood Renaissance, it's time for a new generation of icons to be given the chance for an artistic legacy like legends of the past. Despite the arguably negative era we're in, it's not entirely hopeless. Apps like Letterboxd expose many to a wider variety and diversity of films one might have never seen before, especially for more casual movie fans that wouldn't normally stray from mainstream blockbusters. Sensations like "Barbenheimer" brought so many audiences back to the theaters like never before, supporting two incredible and artistically potent films that both embody the best quality of modern cinema: Barbie and Oppenheimer. Animation itself is already seeing its own rebirth with inventive and groundbreaking projects like Spider-Man: Into The Spiderverse, The Mitchells vs. The Machines, Puss in Boots: The Last Wish, and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem; these projects prove that there are more exciting and impressive things than Pixar's hyper-realistic animation style, reinventing what the creativity of animation can and should be. And recently we've seen a rise in independent film distribution/production companies like A24 and NEON becoming more mainstream, each of which champion original mid-budget films and really push them to the masses. NEON made waves with their 2019 hit Parasite which took the world by storm and became the first international Best Picture winner, and has also gained significant reputation and recognition among filmmakers around the world, with their films winning the Palme d'Or at the Cannes Film Festival the last four years (the highest prize awarded here and considered one of the most prestigious film awards in the world) with Parasite, Titane, Triangle of Sadness, and Anatomy of a Fall. A24 has grown greatly in popularity, bringing independent films to mainstream audiences in incredibly effective ways, as well as gaining critical acclaim with one of their latest films Everything Everywhere All At Once which earned 7 Academy Awards including Best Pictures (after being nominated for 10). Through all of this, it's clear that good things are still happening in the industry, and despite these reboots and remakes taking up such a huge space in the industry, these signs of ulterior greatness are promising, and I feel that this new renaissance of cinema is closer than we think, and will have a positive impact on the future of film and art as a whole.

See the article feature in CisternYard Media’s digital magazine here (note that this version of the article has been slightly restructured/reworded and any spelling/grammar/formatting errors found in the digital magazine article have been corrected on this page).